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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Indigo De Souza Interview: Compassion for Different Modalities

Photo by Charlie Boss

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Calling from her home near Asheville, North Carolina earlier this month, singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza is getting ready to go on tour behind her terrific sophomore album Any Shape You Take (Saddle Creek). Like everyone, she’s anxious about navigating the current COVID-19 landscape, but how she and her band adapt to a live performance and play the multi-dimensional songs that make up the record seems to be of little concern. I guess if I was as talented as De Souza, I wouldn’t be worried, either. Released last month, Any Shape You Take is a stunning series of ruminations on love and relationships, platonic and romantic, that span a number of years in De Souza’s life. Raised in a conservative small town in North Carolina by a mom who was an artist, De Souza doesn’t shy away from the fact that her family did not fit in. At the encouragement of her mother, she leaned into her artistic visions, making music as early as 9 years old, releasing her first EP in 2016.

After self-releasing her (very appropriately titled) first album I Love My Mom in 2018, De Souza signed to indie stalwarts Saddle Creek, who rereleased her debut and supplied her with the means to craft a much larger-sounding follow-up. Working with prolific secret weapon co-producer Brad Cook, her first proper label release occupies an incredible amount of genre territory. “This is the way I’m going to bend,” announces De Souza on auto-tuned synth pop opener “17″ before, well, bending in a number of different directions. “Darker Than Death” and “Die/Cry”, nervous songs that were written years ago, sport fitting build-ups, the former’s slow hi hats and cymbals giving way to jolts of guitar noise, the latter’s jangly rock taking a back seat to yelped harmonies. Songs like “Pretty Pictures” and “Hold U” reenter the dance world, the latter an especially catchy neo soul and funk highlight, a simple earworm of a love song. In the end, whether playing scraped, slow-burning guitar or rubbery keyboard, De Souza’s thoughtful and honest meditations center the emotionally charged album, one of the very best of the year.

De Souza takes her live show to the Beat Kitchen tonight and tomorrow night (both sold out) with Dan Wriggins of Friendship opening. Read our interview with De Souza about the making of Any Shape You Take and her songwriting process.

Since I Left You: On Any Shape You Take, there seems to be a good mix of folks you’ve worked with before and folks you’re working with for the first time. What did each group bring to the table?

Indigo De Souza: Brad Cook was co-producing. It was my first time working with a producer on something. That was crazy. He was very supportive of everything and very encouraging. It was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of who wanted to encourage my vision. I also worked with Alex [Farrar] and Adam [McDaniel] from drop of sun studios in Asheville. They’re both just so sweet and talented. They were engineering but also helped with production as well. I ended up getting really close with Alex, and me and Alex finished out the album together doing vocal overdubs and random overdubs. It feels like he did a lot of production on the album and was a star for me in the process. They were all great to work with. It was interesting to me to have so many people working on the album.

What I realized after the fact, [though], was that it was kind of distracting for me to have so many brains working on it. It taught me I actually feel very confidently about my vision for songs, and I can trust myself to have ideas for my own songs. I think I was scared going in that I was going to come up blank in that scenario because it was such a high-pressure thing, getting on a label and making a high-production album. But I definitely thrived in the space. It was really fun.

SILY: It shows in the finished product. There are so many different styles and subgenres within the record. Do you listen to all the types of music that show up on this record?

IDS: Yeah, for sure. Mostly, I listen to pop music and dance music. That’s probably my most daily genre. I don’t listen to a lot of music daily, though. I listen to music probably a couple times a week when I’m in the car, but it’s so random, and the genres I listen to are pretty random. It depends on my mood. I think when I’m writing, it’s the same way, whether I’m writing a poppier or rock-based song. They’re different moods for me.

SILY: How do you generally approach juxtaposing lyrics with instrumentation?

IDS: With writing, it’s different every time the way they fall into place together. I do notice that one of the more common ways it happens is I’ll be going about my day and hear a melody in my head and start humming it and realize I’m making it up, that I have no record of it before. I’ll start attaching feeling to the melody, depending on what I’m feeling, and at first I’ll be singing gibberish with the melody, but I’ll usually get some headphones on and plug into the computer so I can sing into a microphone. I’ll mess around with the melody and sing random words until something true to me kind of sticks. That’s usually how it goes. Sometimes, I [do] sit down and it comes out in one breath, like the song is already written in my mind.

Honestly, it’s so normalized how songwriting is. It’s such a strange, magical thing that people can write songs that have never been written before. [laughs]

SILY: Thematically, there are a lot of songs on Any Shape You Take where you’re feeling doubts about a relationship, like on “Darker Than Death”. Someone’s feeling bad, and you’re wondering whether it’s you making them feel bad. And on “Die, Cry”, you sing, “I’d rather die than see you cry.” On the other hand, there are some songs like “Pretty Pictures” where you know your place more within the relationship, and you know what’s eventually gonna happen to it. How do you balance those feelings of doubt with knowing what’s gonna happen?

IDS: It’s funny, because the first two songs you mention were written a very long time ago when I was in the only very long-term relationship I’ve ever been in. I was very confused in that time and was having a hard time in general with my mental health. “Pretty Pictures” is the newest song on the album, a last minute addition because another song we had on there didn’t really fit. We looked through my demos folder and chose “Pretty Pictures”, the most recent song I had written at the time, and recorded it for the album. They’re totally different times in my life, and how you said it is definitely how I was. There’s a time I was more confused, and now, love is more simple in my life, and I can process things and see how they are, have compassion for different modalities.

SILY: I love the line on “Way Out”, “There are no monsters underneath your bed, and I’ll never be the only thing you love.” It’s a very logical statement in the face of unbridled emotion that can make you think illogically. Is that contrast something you think shows up throughout the record?

IDS: Within love, over time, I’ve realized that there’s not one person for anybody. There’s a lot of fluidity in the ways people can feel towards other people. That line is definitely a nod to allowing people to love many other people and not taking it personally.

SILY: From a singing perspective, you have a lot of different vocal stylings on the record. I found it interesting you led it off with a track where you’re super auto-tuned. Can you tell me about that decision?

IDS: “17” originally was this demo I made in 2016 or 2017. It was a very old demo. In 2018 or so, I brought the demo to my band at the time, and we created a live version of that song that was nothing like the recording that you hear. The recording was so weird and had a lot of auto-tune and higher-pitched and lower-pitched vocals. We had a live version we played for a while that’s on Audiotree. Whenever we were recording Any Shape You Take, we started to record it the live way and realized it wasn’t feeling right. We listened to the old demo, and it gave this wake up kick to everyone. We got excited by how the demo sounded because we hadn’t heard it in so long. We realized we wanted to record it based on the demo. So that song sounds very similar to the way the demo originally sounded.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album title?

IDS: There are so many layers to the album title. [laughs] It came to me mostly because the album takes so many musical shapes but also so many emotional shapes. It feels like a lot of the themes in the album are about change and acceptance of change and acceptance of a full spectrum of feelings of pain and grief and allowing people to take many forms. It was mainly inspired by the fact that I’ve taken so many forms in my life and am witness to the way changing forms yourself can either push people away or pull them in closer. I’ve always been so appreciative of the people in my life who allow me to take so many different forms and are still there to witness and care about me, whether we’re close to each other or far away. That’s the main reason I wanted to call the album Any Shape You Take. The most beautiful kind of love you can have is allowing someone to be themselves and shift in and out of things freely.

SILY: Is your live show faithful to the studio versions of the songs, or did you have to learn how to adapt the songs to the stage?

IDS: A lot of them sound very similar to the recording. We’ve been having so much fun practicing them and playing them live.

SILY: Is there one in particular you’re most looking forward to playing?

IDS: I love playing “Bad Dream”. That’s just a crazy song to play live because it’s so loud and rowdy. [laughs]

SILY: You have that falsetto in the middle of it, too.

IDS: Yeah. It’s so fun.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

IDS: I’m excited that one of my favorite authors, Tao Lin, just put out a book I haven’t been able to get fully into. It’s called Leave Society. I just got it in the mail last week. Other than that, I’ve just been so, so busy with interviews and work on the computer and with my manager, staying on top of this crazy shift happening on top of my life. I haven’t taken in a lot of media. I was just watching Love Island recently because I wanted to shut my brain down. Somebody was telling me about Sexy Beasts last night, which sounds insane. I’m excited to watch that.

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bananaofswifts · 4 years

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Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

#taylor-swift #pop #rock #country-music

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therappundit · 3 years

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***Best of the 1st Half of 2021: SONG EDITION***

Six months into 2021 and since 2020 wrapped up...some things in the world have changed, while other things remain the same (for better or worse). Folks, it’s time to talk about rap music in 2021...

One trend definitely has continued well into 2021: the underground rap world - I’m talking the artists, the aesthetic, the sound, the full projects, every box you can think of - continues to kick the mainstream rap world’s ass. There are already signs of the two imaginary separate worlds intermingling more and more, and we will have to deal with the pros and cons of that down the line...but one thing is for sure: rap music runs deeper, and more sonically diverse than ever before, and as long as there is an internet to enlist the ears and talents of artists from all over the world, the art form will continue to divide, change shape, borrow from the old and add some new, again and again. And we will all be better for it.

So let’s dive right in. As usual there are about 1,000 more songs that I would love to cram into this list, but there are only so many spots...and I’m married with a toddler, so even though I am listening to rap music for a concerningly large portion of my day, it takes a lot of extra coffee and less sleep to keep these posts going (but it’s still worth it, I love connecting with folks over the same under-discussed but ridiculously dope songs and artists).

There are many lists but none quite like this one, here is THE RAP PUNDIT’S LIST OF THE BEST RAP SONGS FROM THE FIRST HALF OF 2021....hope you find some joints you never heard before and really enjoy. And to all of the MCs, Producers, mixers, singers, curators, readers, writers, critics - anyone that contributes something to this music I love....thank you, as always. 🙏

[Bonus joint] 55. “GANG GANG” - Polo G feat. Lil Wayne

https://soundcloud.com/polo-g/polo-g-lil-wayne-gang-gang?in=polo-g/sets/hall-of-fame-675200176

[Bonus joint] 54. “Furious Styles” - Illa Styles feat. Nickelus F https://illastyles.bandcamp.com/track/furious-styles-ft-nickelus-f

[Bonus joint] 53. “Box of Churches” - Pooh Sheisty feat. 21 Savage

https://soundcloud.com/ceo-mrpooh/box-of-churches-feat-21-savage

[Bonus joint] 52. “Beating Down Yo Block” - Monaleo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnMPEfV0bSA

[Bonus joint] 51. “BUZZERBEATER” - Rahiem Supreme feat. Al.Divino & Estee Nack

https://franksvinylrecords.bandcamp.com/track/buzzerbeater-feat-al-divino-estee-nack

50. "A Man Apart” - Rx Papi

https://soundcloud.com/rxpapi/a-man-apart-prod-by-noisy?in=rxpapi/sets/100-miles-walkin

(Face it: you’re either feelin’ the Rx flow or you’re not. The endlessly quotable MC is not always taken seriously, but similar to how the saddest clowns are most adept at masking their pain behind a smile, Papi needs to be taken seriously as a talented rap artist.)

49. “Moving On Up” - Evidence feat. Conway The Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F35OOXvQ4c

(Evidence, Babu, Daringer and Conway all joining forces on a record feels like a timeline altering reach between two completely different generations of elite underground hip-hop artists, but in the case of “Moving On Up”, it’s not just a “hey wouldn’t it be dope if” fantasy, it’s a sweet reality. Ev has connected with the Griselda camp before and of course the results are dope. Add this one to the list, one of the many fine moments off of Unlearning Vol. 1.)

48. “Gordon Ramsay Freestyle” - Remble

https://soundcloud.com/remble2/gordon-ramsay-freestyle-prod-by-laudiano

(An attention grabbing MC if ever I heard one, Remble clearly hails from the same camp as Drakeo The Ruler - Stinc Team - but with that flow and sense of humor, he may develop a lot more than just a strong following out on the West Coast. Look out for Remble, he is knocking on the door of blowing, he’s just one key feature away...)

47. “The Shifts” - maassai feat. AKAI SOLO

https://maassai.bandcamp.com/track/the-shifts-feat-akai-solo

(If you haven’t checked out one of 2021′s most quietly impressive albums, I cannot recommend With The Shifts enough.)

46. “BOXINABACK” - Bris feat. Alphie Blood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3ai7WYivGo

(The career of Sacramento’s Bris was really beginning to pick up momentum in 2020...sadly, he was killed the same year. I cannot pretend to be an expert in the Sscramento rap scene, I just know that it’s been bubbling for a while, and this song really captured my attention as soon as I heard it. RIP, Bris.)

45. “Last Day Out” - Rio Da Yung OG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB51CUUod1w

(Right before Rio Da Yung OG entered the penitentiary, he dropped “Last Day Out”, a song that perfectly captures what the rap game will be missing while he’s gone - and more brutal honesty than we are accustomed to hearing from Flint, Michigan’s punchline killer.)

44. “Thousand Miles” - MAVI

https://mavi.bandcamp.com/track/thousand-miles

(The whole EP is impressive, but I think this joint most actually captures MAVI’s rhyme skills, flow and song writing ability. With young talent like this bubbling up from the underground scene, the future of rap music is as strong as ever.)

43. “Appletree” - Valee & KiltKarter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPO2AXgZMSc

(Not necessarily a vibe that everyone will be into...but one that if you are into it, you will reap the rewards in abundance. It’s so enjoyable to hear Valee applying his unpredictable cadence to new music once again, made that much more enjoyable by the fact that he has already dropped THREE mixtapes in 2021 and it’s only July!)

42. “Next Chamber” - Peter Rosenberg feat. Method Man, Raekwon & Willie The Kid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1amHQefki98

(Admit it: this is the type of production we have all been wanting on Wu-Tang albums for years. We won’t get it, but this is closer to the sound that they represented....and of course let’s not forget about the always welcome WTK feature, who does more than hold his own over the NY legends.)

41. “St. James Liquor” - Skyzoo feat. Aaria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWC_tFzqUz8

(Pen game’s don’t come much finer than Skyzoo’s. The Brooklyn MC put a lot of work into All The Brilliant Things, and the final result was a collection of thoughtful rap songs like this one: descriptive, autobiographical rhymes over beautiful instrumentation that conjures memories of classic Roots records, and the headspace that only the greatest early 90′s East Coast lyricism could provide. Great song, great album.)

40. “10″ - Drakeo the Ruler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIRJoQFyS6c

(One of the best stories in 2020 rap music was when Drakeo hit the street once again, after a painfully long stretch of time in prison. He really hit the ground running in 2021, dropping one quality track after another...but then again, he never really stopped making dope rap in the first place, be it in the studio or over prison phone.)

39. “MASSA” - Tyler, The Creator feat. DJ Drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vGz0bFutZs

(When folks were saying that Tyler was RAPPING rapping on his new album, this is what they were talking about. Not since Kanye West has a polarizing rapper-producer excelled so well at spilling his guts all over a track, and moments like this "MASSA” make Call Me If You Get Lost the standout project that it is.)

38. "DARTGUNZ” - Chuck Strangers

https://soundcloud.com/chuckstrangers/dartgunz-produced-by-samiyam

(Chuck Strangers remains low-key one of the best MC / Producers in the game, but Chuck is merely flexing his bar-work on this Samiyam produced gem.)

37. “Messy” - Nappy Nina & JWords

https://nappynina.bandcamp.com/track/messy

(Big shout-out to Pitchfork for putting me on to Nappy Nina within their rap song of the day section, The Ones. I love her music, and when paired with the incredibly gifted producer JWords - who I was only somewhat familar with thanks to previous terrific collaborations with MIKE and maassai - the result is a dope ass album like Double Down.)

36. “Nobles” - The Alchemist feat. Earl Sweatshirt & Navy Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQoKO_v93g0

(The instrumental sounds as a triumphant as you could expect music from this trio to sound. My only complaint about This Things Of Ours was that it wasn’t 10-50 songs longer.)

35. “Nothing Like The Sun” - Tree feat. Roc Marciano

https://mctreeg.bandcamp.com/track/nothing-like-the-sun-feat-roc-marciano

(Okay so for the past few years, I had been pressing Tree, Closed Sessions, and just about anyone that would listen that a less than a minute clip from an old Tree promo featured an unreleased Tree & Roc Marciano joint. So finding out that this joint would *finally* being released on Tree’s Soul Trap album, it felt like Christmas morning. Now the world finally gets to hear two of the finest rap artists from the past decade plus!)

34. “nine lives” - maassai

https://maassai.bandcamp.com/track/nine-lives

(A great example of a song that seems to get better and better as it goes on, maassai & that horn sample are undeniably good on here.)

33. “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” - Drake feat. Rick Ross

https://soundcloud.com/octobersveryown/drake-lemon-pepper-freestyle?in=octobersveryown/sets/scary-hours-2-1

(This one really radiates, “YES, you have heard this before”...but when it works so well, that’s not such a bad thing. Drake came ready to rap, and it will propel this joint to the top of many lists you will find on those other web sites.)

32. “triboro.” - Remy Banks feat. Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, Wiki & A-Trak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwSJ-DtZRBk

(I dig this in a big way. A few of NYC’s finest, flexing over what feels like blasting Kraftwerk out of a boombox on the L Train? I’m so on board.)

31. “Safe To Say” - Good Gas, Fki 1st & Band Gang Lonnie Bands feat. Band Gang Biggs & Glockboyz Teejaee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aykhcv625u0

(Of all my favorite projects that dropped in 2021 thus far, I don’t know if any have been as inexplicably under-discussed as the Good Gas, Fki 1st & Band Gang Lonnie Bands banger, Street Dream Team. I stumbled upon the project completely by accident one week while thumbing through all of the new joints that dropped from Detroit MCs one week, and I have kept it in heavy rotation ever sense. While not necessarily a spot-on snapshot of Band Gang Lonnie Bands’ typical sound, for a Michigan outsider like me, it makes for a great entry level intro to one of my favorite rappers out of the Motor City right now.)

30. "Early Exit” - Lloyd Banks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BUofKVrb-A

(Yeah the Roc Marciano verse sounds like it was recorded over an old radio on cassette tape, but as someone from the real mixtape era, I’m not going to let shaky sound quality distract from the fact that every other part of the song is fantastic. The bars are there of course, but the beat and hook are all spot-on, and sound quality be damed it’s just great to hear Banks & Roc together.)

29. "Yonkers” - Wiki & NAH

https://wiksetnyc.bandcamp.com/track/yonkers

(Rife with experimentation and half-freestyles, and sonically living somewhere between Company Flow and Ratking, the subterranean metro sounds of Wiki and NAH’s Telephonebooth might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you have been checking for Wiki’s music prior to this point, chances are you are going to be feeling this collaboration with NAH, a producer that I was previously not familiar with, but became a huge fan over night thanks to cuts like “Yonkers”.)

28. “John Wick” - AKAI SOLO & Navy Blue

(Whether you still believe “lo-fi” rap is a legitimate sub-genre or not, there’s no denying the abilities of these two gifted writers/artists. The wind is blowing in this direction my friends, I just hope you get on board soon and stop neglecting all of the great rap music rising from this corner of the underground.)

https://akaisolo.bandcamp.com/track/john-wick-prod-navy-blue

27. “Let It Roll Interlude” by IAMNOBODI feat. Phonte & BeMyFiasco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVA1hXEnwnE

(Hard to believe that arguably the strongest rap verse of 2021 would be so under the radar, but here we are...)

26. "Taylor Made Suit” - Evidence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qLIuc3z7KQ

(Perhaps the thing I love most about this new Ev - both the song itself, as well as the entire album - is how incredibly effective he sounds over minimalist production throughout. “Funeral suit, same as my wedding suit”...shout-out to the legendary MC and producer, both for everything that has has endured in his personal life and his ability to turn his pain into art.)

25. “GOOFIEZ” - Mother Nature and Boathouse feat. Valee

https://mothernaturebarz.bandcamp.com/track/goofiez-featuring-valee

(When Chicago talent gets busy on a record, not many can hang with them. Be on the lookout for more and more big things from the likes of Mother Nature, Valee, and Boathouse.)

24. “Peach Cobbler” - Navy Blue

https://navybluethetruest.com/

(I’m not sure if there is a “chosen one” right now, someone destined to reach such levels of success and/or respect that Drake & Kendrick-esque waves are felt over a generation...but if there is, the mega-talented producer/MC/skater/whatever he wants to be Navy Blue might fit the bill.)

23. “Rose Gold” - 42 Dugg feat. EST Gee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhmKfKZr-PQ

(There are more than a few songs off of 42 Dugg’s Free Dem Boyz that belong in my Top 50, but “Rose Gold” gets the nod off the strength of the menacing beat paired with 42 and one of the most scorching hot rappers walking the earth right now, EST Gee)

22. "MANIFESTO” - Tyler, The Creator feat. Domo Genesis & DJ Drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnDXCoHRl4o

(The Selena Gomez/Justin Bieber bar will garner most of the hype around this joint, but don’t let it distract from the fact that this song is one of the best collaborations between former Odd Future members since the collective’s creative peak.)

21. “What’s Next” - Drake

https://soundcloud.com/octobersveryown/drake-whats-next?in=octobersveryown/sets/scary-hours-2-1

(Pay attention to this Drake guy, I think he has a shot of making it. He makes it seem so easy, yet he has no peers at his level right now. There’s the growing underground elite...then there’s Drake, and little competition to duke it out with him when it comes to smash rap hits....assuming that is still supposed to be a thing?)

20. “MOMENTZ” - Mother Nature and Boathouse

https://mothernaturebarz.bandcamp.com/track/momentz-2

(You would be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable, high quality tape than SZNZ. The Chicago MCs rock a beat that sounds like a Camp Lo leftover - and I mean that in the best way possible - and show a natural penchant for earwormy choruses that should serve them very well in this biz.)

19. “Grace Jones” - maassai

https://maassai.bandcamp.com/track/grace-jones

(Somewhere between spoken word and where Lyricist Lounge-era Rawkus resides, you can find the warrior poet that is maassai: quite simply one of the most impressive MCs in rap right now.)

18. “How It Feels” - Lil Baby & Lil Durk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAsRTTO8L2k

(I know how it feels to care relatively little about a collaboration project between two of the game’s more revered Lil’s, then be blown away by both of them rapping their asses off for like 20 songs.)

17. “Falling Out the Sky” - Armand Hammer & The Alchemist feat. Earl Sweatshirt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctmTme9cG74

(There’s wavy, and then there’s wavy in the hands of The Alchemist, Earl Sweatshirt and Armand Hammer. One of Haram’s many standouts, this one is probably not what fans expected when they first saw the album’s tracklist, but it might actually be more special than we expected.)

16. “Capitol 1″ - EST Gee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ng7Sg1_RTM

(Mark my words: by the time we reach the end of 2021, EST Gee will be in the top 10 of every reputable rap site’s best MC list. At least I know that he will most likely be on mine.)

15. “LUMBERJACK” - Tyler, the Creator feat. DJ Drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WOjaYotX1c

(Who knew we needed Tyler to join forces with DJ Drama to rap over a Gravediggaz joint? Never one to do what everyone expects, when this cut dropped about a week before his new album was released, it was clear that he was ready to pick up where he left off with his impressive bar-work on a flurry of features in 2020. Now that I think about it, after “Something To Talk About” and “327″ maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that Tyler dropped one of the hardest joints of the year.)

14. “The Stellar Ray Theory” - Mach-Hommy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3GWJrL2ht0

(The single that Mach & Griselda stans were terrified to hear, at the risk of revealing their no-longer-a-secret project to be a painful example of how far the parties had drifted since their over-publicized fallout, only to find the opposite: Mach & Gunn didn’t just find their chemistry once again, they improved upon it.)

13. “Sandra” - MIKE

https://mikelikesrap.bandcamp.com/track/sandra

(With his new Disco! album, MIKE managed to step outside of his typical lane of delivery, showing how nimble he truly is as a MC, and even takes his skills to another level as a producer, delivering what might be the most enjoyable album of his career thus far.)

12. "No Time” - Your Old Droog feat. Wiki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y8Ozq9tMLE

(The new YOD album sounds so painstakingly written and executed, you would never believe it just casually dropped out of the blue one evening. Few are better at crafting themes without compromising the joy of listening to the music, Droog delivered once again.)

11. "What The Money Taught Us” - Skyzoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2QEbxMYgU

(This new Skyzoo album has so much beauty to unpack, please dig in if you have been keeping it on the back-burner for some reason.)

And now the Top 10...

10. “Folie Á Deux” - Mach-Hommy feat. Westside Gunn & Keisha Plum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF1-VvJsbqI

(Conductor Williams does it again, putting his own unique touch to one of Pray For Haiti’s standout cuts. The song is almost beautiful sound if it wasn’t for Westside Gunn, Mach and Keisha Plum pumping their own unique rawness into the beat. This one represents everything going right with Griselda right now.)

9. “Hallways” - Peter Rosenberg feat. Roc Marciano & Flee Lord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrDrvozDzo4

(Superior to anything on last year’s Mt. Marci, Disco Vietnam really blessed Flee Lord and Roc Marciano with the type of late night loungin’ in New York banger that Roc knows how to knock out the park better than anyone. “Hallways” screams late night underground radio in a way that feels both nostalgic and fresher than just about anything out right now.)

8. "Seeing Green” - Nicki Minaj feat. Lil Wayne & Drake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diUcHDlCqMo

(Many have tried to recapture the skill, swagger, and star power of The Roc in the early 00′s, but most have not been able to come close. Leave it to the diamonds in Young Money’s crown to come through and capture the pomp and circumstance so successfully, it’s amazing that Just Blaze wasn’t somehow involved. If you aren’t feelin’ at least one of these verses, time to join a hater support group.)

7. “Prayers Over Packages” - DJ Muggs & Rome Streetz & DJ Muggs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r2AYxN20ZI

(Most underground artists must be so excited to have the legendary DJ Muggs lace them with a full project, and I’m sure Rome Streetz was honored. But while Muggs delivered another strong performance on Death & The Magician, it’s Rome that elevates the material to truly masterful levels.)

6. “Wants and Needs” - Drake feat. Lil Baby

https://soundcloud.com/octobersveryown/drake-wants-and-needs-feat-lil?in=octobersveryown/sets/scary-hours-2-1

(Yes Drake still has the touch, one of rap music’s few legitimate hitmakers left....but hot damn, it’s Lil Baby coming through to turn the joint to ashes that carries “Wants and Needs” to song of the year caliber levels.)

5. “S.R.D.” - Peter Rosenberg feat. Styles P, Ransom & Smok DZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tzSrIZ8tso

(Don’t overthink it: the watery boom-bap backdrop provided by Buck Dudley is exquisite, and all three MCs go in. I think it’s time to admit that if it wasn’t for the like him or passionately hate him aura around Peter Rosenberg, a lot more folks would. be praising this compilation as one of the finest since peak DJ street tape era.)

4. “Black Sunlight” - Armand Hammer & The Alchemist feat. KAYANA

https://armandhammer.bandcamp.com/track/black-sunlight-featuring-kayana

(What more can I say about this union by now? Al dipping into his breezy bag to bless the lyrical onslaught of billy woods and ELUCID was not something that I thought I needed, but after hearing them cook together I don’t know if I ever want Armand Hammer to go back to the bleak soundscapes they’re often know for. The contract in style was so effective throughout Haram, bringing out the best from all parties, in my not-so-humble opinion...hopefully even more to come from this alliance.)

3. “TV Dinners” - The Alchemist feat. Sideshow & Boldy James

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUGrlVivic

(A slick, seemingly harmless little head nodder from The Alchemist, Boldy and the rapidly ascending main-stage level Sideshow. I felt this one right from the jump the day Al’s This Thing of Ours EP dropped, and it’s remained high on my list of 2021 favorites ever since. Give me a bunch of chill MCs doing deceptively slick pen-work over a jazzy but simple loop, and I’m set.)

2. “The 26th Letter” - Mach-Hommy feat. Westside Gunn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7jcjW8h230

(Forget the albums that go for thousand of dollars. Forget the mysterious aura around him, forget the Twitter stan-dom and those that loathe them, and forget the flames of Griselda gossip that are fanned by both fans and doubters....and just imagine you never heard this MC rap before and you have just pressed play on “The 26th Letter”. )

1. “Kill All Rats” - Conway & Big Ghost LTD. feat. Ransom & Rome Streetz

https://bigghostlimited.bandcamp.com/track/kill-all-rats-ft-ransom-rome-streetz

(Whenever attempting to wrangle my favorite songs into one tidy list, there is one ex-factor that can elevate a collection of bars to an elite song: execution. You already know that when punchlines kings the caliber of Ransom, Rome Streetz, and Conway The Machine get on a record together, it’s bound to be a bar-fest....but to the extent of “Kill All Rats”??? Not expected. The name of the song itself invites a certain degree of redundancy, but when three great MCs jump on a track and write verses near the top of their skill level - and when a producer like Big Ghost sounds equally incensed with the instrumental that he brought to the table - even a straight-forward posse cut can end up being the best rap song of the year thus far.)

*COMING SOON: BEST RAP ALBUMS, AND RAP VERSES OF THE FIRST HALF OF 2021...stay tuned.* 👀

See also:

https://therappundit.tumblr.com/post/649527317251670016/best-of-the-1st-quarter

https://therappundit.tumblr.com/post/638904640503726080/the-best-rap-songs-of-2020-great-songs-that

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dusted Mid-Year Exchange, Part 2: Positive No to Yves Tumour

Six Organs got a lot of mid-year love this time

Welcome back to part two of the Dusted Mid-Year Exchange, in which we tackle the second half of the alphabet. If you missed part one, with its lengthy description of what we’re doing here, you can read it here. Or just muddle through. Cheers.

Positive No — Kyanite (Little Black Cloud)

Kyanite by Positive No

Who recommended it? Tobias Carroll

Did we review it? No.

Tim Clarke’s take:

Positive No braid tight bursts of guitars, bass and drums into upbeat yet agitated shapes. There’s a touch of Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino in Tracy Wilson’s vocal delivery, or My Bloody Valentine’s Belinda Butcher, especially on expansive opener “Elevator Up.” At just under half an hour, the urgent economy of Kyanite’s songwriting makes all the more sense when you learn that it’s the band’s final album, released on Valentine’s Day this year. As their parting gesture, nothing is wasted, everything invested. As one of the song titles says, “Get In, Get Out. Don’t Linger. Go On.”

Raspberry Bulbs — Before the Age of Mirrors

Before The Age Of Mirrors by Raspberry Bulbs

Who picked it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan said, “Even in its heaviest metal moments, on ‘Reclaimed Church’ and excellent closing track ‘Given Over to History,’ the record’s punk vibe cuts and grins. It insists on a deadly aesthetic seriousness, and at the same time, it’s tugging the rug out from under its own feet.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Raspberry Bulbs splices punk’s antic venom with metal’s storm and roar, shifting from one mode to the other inside individual tracks, sometimes measure to measure. Consider “Doggerel” which kicks off in a pogo-ing furor, rattling violently over rapid oi band rhythms, everything clipped and percussive, even the vocals, though hoarse and splintered. Midway through, a sirening guitar riff intercedes and the singing turns ominous and measured; all the sudden it’s metal. “Midnight Line” pulls the opposite trick, beginning in clanging, feedback-morphing guitar and larynx shredding howl, then introducing a punk rock palm-muted chug and anthemry. It’s a volatile mix, at times nearly playful, at others agonizingly heavy, at still others (the “Intervals” mostly) surprisingly lyrical. I lean towards the punk-er tracks—"They’re After Me” and “Doggerel”— metal fans may feel otherwise.

Stephen Riley — Friday the 13th (Steeplechase)

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes. Derek said, “Knuffke and Riley are a directly collaborative pairing now and their partnership politely demands many more dates like this one.”

Justin Cober-Lake's take:

Saxophonist Stephen Riley has put together a quartet with a singular idea of playing these classic tunes on Friday the 13th in relatively straightforward and spacious renditions. Their take on Eddie Vinson's “Four” has Riley and cornetist Kirk Knuffke trading long solos. The rhythm section does its job, but it's a horn players' record. The album comes alive most when Knuffke and Riley interact more immediately. On Oliver Nelson's “Hoe Down,” they reveal how great a partnership they have, initially matching each other on the main melody before spiraling off. “Round Midnight” could have been too obvious a choice, but the combo's personalized take on the standard works out. Everyone sounds at ease enough within the song that they take a few more risks, and the horn players supplement each other nicely with more harmonic considerations. The album ends with a trio of spirited numbers, and in each case Riley and Knuffke play off each other's solos with a sharpness that by now makes sense. Riley's listening to Monk and playing like Rollins (hence the title track) as he and his group find ways to make old bop sound new.

Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven—We’re New Again, A Reimagining (XL Recordings)

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Who recommended it? Jenny Kelly.

Did we review it? Yes. Arthur Krumins notes, “McCraven lays down a lush musical backdrop that allows Scott-Heron’s words to have emotional impact.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

The word “reimagine” has a sexy resonance, and for that reason, it’s often too casually used. But in the case of We’re New Again, the word is warranted. Drummer and producer Makaya McCraven doesn’t just remix Gil Scott-Heron’s final record, I’m New Here (2010); McCraven shuffles the track list, adds some relevant recordings of Scott-Heron’s voice, and creates entirely new arrangements, moods, and musical accompaniment for the earlier album’s songs. It’s ballsy — I’m New Here is justly recognized as a masterpiece, and it’s marked by a stylistic austerity. On that record, Scott-Heron sang and spoke and recited his poetry over minimalist beats, a strummed guitar, or his own piano playing. McCraven attentively reimagines the tunes, working with polyphonic, post-Bop ensembles; busy hip-hop soundscapes; gospel and funk quotations. Remarkably, none of the richness of Scott-Heron’s vocals and none of the complexity of his poetry get obscured. More often, McCraven inventively intensifies the impact of Scott-Heron’s songs. And the reordering and recontextualizing of the tracks reveals a different narrative, grounded in the resilience and the suffering of Scott-Heron’s upbringing and too-short life. You listen and you feel it. It’s a terrific record.

Six Organs of Admittance — Companion Rises (Drag City)

Companion Rises by Six Organs of Admittance

Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jenny said it’s “straight-down-the-middle Six Organs, not as loud and abrasive as the first Hexadic disc, not as reticently wisp-y as the older folk-derived records.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Back when Dusted was still a dot-com, we talked about making a site-specific canon for our 10th anniversary, a kind of “Dusted 500” field guide. There was a shared spreadsheet and talk of a benefit show and a mixtape comp and so on that never amounted to anything for myriad reasons, but I can promise you Ben Chasny would’ve figured into it somehow — and nearly a decade on from that, my promise stands. The latest (30th? Let’s call it 30th) Six Organs of Admittance record is a beautiful slow burner that shows why, all astral spirits and slow-rolling starlight guitar plucks that is, as Jenny rightly notes, a Six Organs line drive. My belief after numerous spins since early February — mostly in the mornings, for which this music also seems suitable accompaniment — is that, like the rest of Chasny’s oeuvre, it will appeal to anyone who likes guitars or reads this. On the off chance you stumbled in here or haven’t heard this record yet: Welcome. It’s always been this way.

Patrick Masterson

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone (Pure Noise)

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes. Ian said, “it’s more a record of solidarity and mutual support than it is anything more prescriptive.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

L.A. quintet Spanish Love Songs occupy a very specific point on what I like to think of as the Bar Band Spectrum, where one end is a bottom-rung covers-only collective found in just about any weeknight dive pre-COVID playing for beer money out of boredom and modest ambition… and the other end is Bruce Springsteen. This band isn’t as ramshackle as, say, Ladyhawk, nor have they yet hit a glass ceiling à la the Constantines; they sound to me more like Beach Fossils or Single Mothers, where everything from their songwriting to their slightly glossy production suggests they’re as ready as they’ll ever be for arena life. And what a record to make the case, too: Brave Faces Everyone is the sound of Run for Covers Records growing up or early onset Gen Z realizing a glass of wine after everything is, in fact, a coping mechanism for adulthood in a profoundly uncaring world. It’s got a big, young heart to match its big, old sound. It says, loudly, that in the increasingly untethered reality of 2020, we are all losers forever — but there’s still a “best of it” to be made if you wanna and the bravest face is an optimistic one. I’ll rock with that (from the quarantined confines of home and the other side of another lousy livestream, of course).

Patrick Masterson

Squirrel Flower — I Was Born Swimming (Polyvinyl)

I Was Born Swimming by Squirrel Flower

Who picked it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? Nope.

Arthur Krumins’ take:

Making the most of a dour mood, Squirrel Flower squeezes disaffection from her vocal delivery. The instrumentation is reminiscent of a less noisy Built to Spill, or maybe Julie Doiron, and is effectively now a retro indie rock sound originally from the late 90s or early 2000s. The jamminess of some of the drawn out riffs feel both pretty and sad, and could be a good soundtrack to a rainy drive. The heaviness is well developed without being bogged down. The lyrics catch your attention with their plainspoken narration of conflict (“You slap me, I’ll slap you right back” she repeats in “Slapback”). A fitting album for looking your troubles head on while still being totally surrounded by them.

Waterless Hills — The Great Mountain (Cardinal Fuzz)

Waterless Hills - 'The Great Mountain' by Waterless Hills

Who picked it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No.

Arthur Krumins’ take:

A dissonant flow that steadily increases in intensity starts this record, which is a live recorded improvisation. The combination of aching, modal violin by dbh with slightly overdriven cascading electric guitar by C Joynes makes for a feel reminiscent of “Venus in Furs” by the Velvet Underground. The percussion by Andrew Cheetham, a drum kit plug some extras like a hung Chinese gong, creates texture and mood. Sometimes there’s just a steady counting of time in the background, at other moments waves of cymbals crash and make a cacophonous emphasis as the music rises and falls. The overall effect of the jams is hypnotic, like getting absorbed in a swirling light show. The players’ sensitivity to the musical interplay of their instruments, combined with a masterful looseness, makes it a trip worth taking.

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead (Self-released)

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Who recommended it? Ian Mathers.

Did we review it? Yes. Ian Mathers notes, “tipping towards the slightly industrial/EBM side of the genre, We Mirror the Dead gains a kind of gloomy propulsion without losing any of the atmosphere or intensity of [the band’s] prior work.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

The Gothic is not famous for stylistic restraint, and neither are the various contemporary subgenres that have inherited goth music’s romance of dark interiors, painfully fraught feeling and highly stylized self-fashioning. A few recent acts have cut against the grain of those established maximalist textures: see the grim industrial rancor of Street Sects, and the more experimental, sample-based austerities of Wreck and Reference. Well Yells’ music feels similarly stripped down to a pulsing electronic essence. But the record is more interested in the strobing spaces of Clubland than in decrepit factory ruins, and the darkwave gloss of We Mirror the Dead presents a more conventional relation to goth’s sensations. At its best—as on album opener “Kill the King”—the music of Patrick Holbrook, sole member of Well Yells, snaps and glimmers with compelling dread and arch sophistication. Holbrook’s breathy tenor is a useful counterpoint; his vocals are vaguely reminiscent of the best of those other habitués of Clubland, the British New Romantics (remember Bronski Beat?). It’s good stuff, somehow simultaneously polished and dirty.

Lucinda Williams—Good Souls Better Angels (Thirty Tigers/Highway 20 Records)

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Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No.

Bill Meyer’s take: I haven’t listened much to Lucinda Williams; the one record I have by her, Sweet Old World, is 28 years old. The first thing that hit me when I listened to Good Souls Better Angels is what’s changed. Williams’ voice is much rougher, and she’s adjusted the music correspondingly, adding Hendrixian guitar flourishes to “Bone of Contention” and coarsening the domestic violence scenario “Wakin’ Up” with bad-trip electronics. The next is how pissed she sounds. Violent boyfriends are bad enough, but having a charmless sociopath for president is even worse. Fortunately, bile hasn’t overwhelmed her writing chops. Big-sounding roots rock isn’t really my thing these days, but if I feel the need to change that, Good Souls Better Angels is a good place to start.

Wire — Mind Hive (Pink Flag)

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Who picked it? Andrew Forell

Did we review it? Yes, Andrew said, “Mind Hive is concise yet full of restless intelligence, musical ideas and willingness to push boundaries.”

Derek Taylor’s take:

I tapped Wire late and left early. That truncated exposure lends a narrow vocabulary in describing their music contextually, pre- and post-reunions. This latest missive sounds alternately like what I remember and at least several zip codes removed with a heavy lean into synths. “Be Like Them” and “Primed and Ready” fall in the former category, while “Off the Beach” trades gangly ennui and menace for what almost resembles instrumental optimism until the lyrics stack dutifully into another ode to the disaffected and disconnected. “Oklahoma” feels inscrutably weird. “Hung” drops as the album’s extended, incremental, post-industrial dirge. There’s additional insulation sheathing this Wire, an inevitable adjunct of ascendancy to elder status, but the current foursome is still dependably conducting current.

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind (Warp)

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Who recommend it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.

Ian Mathers’ take:

Listen to music for long enough and you might realize that most of the time when you hope any artist goes in any particular direction with their work, you’re bound to be disappointed. But every so often, maybe after a promising album that you just didn’t fully click with, an artist does exactly what you were hoping for and fully manifests all the potential promise you thought you glimpsed. Yves Tumor’s 2018 album Safe in the Hands of Love was admirable in many ways, but it was really only on crucial single “Noid” that all the combustible elements were really brought together into something that properly bangs. Well, Heaven to a Tortured Mind might not have as many showcases for the ambient/noise chops that Tumor definitely has, but it does consistently bang for 36 minutes of should-be alternate universe pop hits, from the brassy “Gospel for a New Century” to the floaty duet “Kerosene!” For anyone who loved “Noid” and then found more to respect than the viscerally love on Tumor’s last record, this is the record you were waiting for, and it is magnificent and ferocious.

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theeverlastingshade · 4 years

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Heaven Or Las Vegas- Cocteau Twins: 30th Anniversary

Of all the bands who couldn’t be better primed for a comeback from a cultural standpoint while being highly unlikely to ever reunite in any sort of compacity whosever, Cocteau Twins occupy a peculiar place within the musical landscape of 2020. Even if all touring wasn’t completely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cocteau Twins (the predominant trio being vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist/synth programmer Robin Guthrie, and bassist Simon Raymonde) seem unlikely to ever reunite for the kind of festival comebacks that have brought back many a legacy act due to the implosion of Fraser and Guthrie’s marriage. And yet while they were largely unheard of up until their 1990 sixth LP and masterwork, Heaven or Las Vegas, their run from their highly promising 1982 debut Garlands through HoLV has continues to prove incredibly influential with each passing year on a multitude of underground and mainstream acts alike, influencing acts as diverse as SIgur Ros, Arca and so many more. While Cocteau Twins have never released a record that’s less than good, HoLV still stands as the pinnacle of their creative output, and the defining landmark statement of the increasingly ubiquitous sub-genre widely tagged as dream pop.

Since emerging as a gothic rock band at the beginning of the 80s, Cocteau Twins have cultivated a singular stain of pop/rock informed by the contemporary gothic rock and post-punk of the last several preceding years like The Birthday Party and Siouxsie and the Banshees of and the transcendent vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys and Kate Bush. Emerging originally as a three piece for Garlands, Cocteau Twins then stripped things back to just the two piece of Fraser and Guthrie for their great sophomore LP, Head Over Heels, before landing on Raymonde to lock down the low-end on their spectacular third LP, Treasure, solidifying their lineup for all future output. By the time that Cocteau Twins were gearing up to record HoLV, the band was simultaneously on the precipice of legitimate international success and complete implosion. Raymond had just gotten married, and he lost his father in the midst of recording the record, while Fraser and Guthrie had just had a daughter named Lucy Belle, and their marriage remained teetering on the brink of dissolution due to Guthrie’s frequent mood swings and paranoia as a result of his increased drug use. They had also just signed to the revered indie label 4AD after Victorialand, and following the lukewarm reception of their great fifth LP, Blue Bell Knoll, the stakes had been heightened for them to release a record that hit. There had been obvious populist sensibilities coursing throughout the music of Cocteau Twins as early as HOH, but Treasure was the last time that they sounded completely unabashed about their undeniable populist sensibilities until HoLV.

The records that followed the glossy, populist propulsion of Treasure scaled back the immediacy while doubling down on the overall sense of immersion. Victorialand and Blue Bell Knoll, the two records between Treasure and HoLV, are positively meek with respect to the stratospheric heights reached on the former and latter, but they’re far from underwhelming, and showcase the inimitable trio refining their approach to melody while demonstrating a heightened sense of suspending tension. On HoLV, the band draw from everything that they attempted prior onto their largest canvass yet, and as soon as opener “Cherry-Coloured Funk” kicks off in earnest you can hear the warm immediacy of Treasure rushing forth in even greater force. Victorialand is their most insular, ambient-adjacent record, defined primarily by Fraser’s voice being mixed into the greater wall of sound instead of high in front leading the arrangements. The guitar work is some of their most gorgeous to date, but it lacked the immediacy that made Treasure pop. The same is true for BBK, but that record marks a notable shift in their trajectory towards more conventionally structured songs, even though there’s a sense of restraint that keeps a lot of the songs here from truly soaring. Regardless, BBK is still a great record from start to finish, and the highlights like life-affirming “Carolyn’s Fingers” and the exhilarating title track set the stage for where they were about to go with HoLV.

On HoLV, Cocteau Twins shift their gears from the ambient-leaning direction of Victorialand and BBK back to the ethereal pop of Treasure, but with a much tighter focus. On HoLV, songs barely dip past the 3 and a half minute mark, and not a second is wasted on anything other the absolute barest arrangements necessary to convey each song’s emotional heft. As is the case with pretty much every Cocteau Twins record, it’s Elizabeth Fraser who really steals the show throughout the course of HoLV. Her wildly acrobatic vocal runs shift from ecstatic, to wistful, to seductive, to empathetic on a dime, and while always a remarkably expressive vocalist she had never gone for broke with her vocal runs quite the way she does on HoLV. The instrumentation consists of lush, kaleidoscopic guitar/synth arrangements richer, and more melodic than anything that Guthrie had previously recorded. While Raymonde has always been a bit of the band’s secret weapon, there’s no mistaking this sublime basslines as the major grounding force that keeps everything tight throughout the course of the record. Raymonde’s bass lines are immediate yet forceful, providing a sharp sense of momentum even at the music’s most cathartic.

Cocteau Twins aren’t a band that are generally regarded first and foremost because of their lyrics, but on HoLV Fraser pens the band’s most heartfelt, and urgent writing of her career, focused primarily around the birth of her daughter. While some of the songs are more literal in their depictions of her newfound love (“Laughing on our bed/Pretending us newly wed/Especially when/Our angel unleashed that head” from “Wolf in the Breast” comes to mind), some of the songs like “Fifty-Fifty Clown” present more cryptic allusions to the exact nature of her feelings “And is this safe flowing, love, soul, and light/Motions in all motion, emotions all”. Throughout the chorus of the title track, one of the most spellbinding moments of the band’s career, Fraser delivers what seems to scan as the album’s thesis “Singing on the most famous street/I want to love, I’ve all the wrong glory/Am I just in Heaven or Las Vegas?”, proclaiming her desire for love above all else, and questioning whether the band’s success has brought them closer to bliss or oblivion. The vocal melody is her the strongest on any Cocteau Twins song, and her examination of success rings universal for anyone with the self-awareness to question why and how they got where they are, and where the path that they’re can lead if they get too caught up in the thralls of success. And the closer “Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fire” has lyrics that seem sung in tribute to Ramonde’s father “And day from night take all/Bad thoughts and soothe/All he was/Knows you” effectively ending the record with the cycle of life and death.

In spite of the immense cohesion that holds it together in its intended sequencing, HoLV almost plays like a greatest hits record thanks to the filler free, 10 tight compositions that make up its runtime. Although each of their first five records are great in their own right, most have a few songs that overstay their welcome. Each song holds its own within the greater whole, with strong dynamics, hooks, melodies, infectious rhythms, and guitar/synth arrangements that are taut and immediate, but never dull or simplistic. The songs are bursting with color, but there’s never a sense of indulgence on display, and none of the songs waste anytime not building towards something or delivering some kind of release, all the more impressive given the brevity of each song. Highlights like the one-two punch of intro “Cherry-Coloured Funk” and “Pitch the Baby” are downright disarming in their succinct, yet dense arrangements coupled the wide-screen scale of the production which had never before sounded so rich and clear on any of their prior records. The title track and “Fotzepolitic” are the two strongest songs that the band have ever released, and propel HoLV to heights greater than it being just a spectacular pop record. The title track is propelled by funky basslines, a minimal electronic drum beat, radiant synths, and an squealing electric guitar lead that congeal into a sublime carnival that Fraser gets terrific mileage out of by belting out with more urgency than she ever had before, or has since. And on “Fotzepolitic” the band gradually build up a jangly, galloping guitar lead over a strutting bassline and those ever present gleaming synths. Fraser’s delivery is at her most playful, built throughout the last bridge she teases a palpable sense of flight and then her voice drops out of the mix as Guthrie delivers a solo that spirals into stratospheric, euphoric release. It's the grand culmination of everything that the band had done up to that point, and still exudes a legitimate sense of catharsis that very few other songs I’ve listened to have achieved,

Despite the fact that Cocteau Twins were almost completely unknown outside of the UK until the release of HoLV you can hear the angelic undertones of their singular strain of pop in a myriad of underground and mainstream music throughout the 90s up to the present. Any musician playing music that vaguely falls into the broader realm of dream pop likely owes Cocteau Twins an immense debt, as well as chamber pop luminaries like Julia Holter and Grouper, and shoegaze and post-rock legends like Slowdive and Sigur Ros. In addition to informing the aforementioned outre acts, the gloomy, sensual sensibilities of Cocteau Twins also went on to inform a great deal of down-tempo pop music. They’ve been namechecked by Radiohead, sampled by both Arca and The Weeknd, and you can hear their gothic stylings informing pop stars as diverse as Lorde and Billie Eilish. As poptism has completely shifted the critical music discourse towards accessibility above all else, HoLV occupies a peculiar position as a classic record. The stunning melodicism, sublime chemistry, rich instrumentation, and expansive production rendered HoLV an immediately recognized classic upon arrival, but not only has it gotten better with age, but it’s seemed to have become a notably more influential sounding record on far more than just indie music throughout the last decade. And yet for all of the attempts at reverb-addled bliss, no other musician has released a dream pop record before or since the release of HoLV that come close to matching its singular beauty.

Although Cocteau Twins only remained active to release two good but not great records following HoLV before disbanding, the mark they left on music on the whole is indisputable. Their rich discography set a new standard for melodically rich, adventurous pop music unbeholden to the commercial realities of the music industry in a way that ever diluted their idiosyncratic sound. Although Elizabeth Fraser has played live since their split, most recently with Massive Attack while touring the 20th anniversary of their opus, Mezzanine, the possibility of a legitimate Cocteau Twins reunion has always seemed live a stretch. The creative and romantic partnership that disintegrated between Fraser and Guthrie, coupled with the lingering memories of the immense tension that bore the bulk, if not entirety of their output may always prove a barrier to great to justify reconciliation. But even in the likelihood of that sealed finality, the records that the Cocteau Twins made during their golden years of 1983-1990 sound crisper, and more refined with each passing year. With each successive act trying their hand at dreamy sounding, reverb smeared pop music propelled by thick, groovy basslines and lush choral harmonies, the potency of the music that the Cocteau Twins made during those years becomes that much more pronounced. It’s been 27 years since their last LP, and yet the sound that they helped to cultivate and then crystalize on HoLV continues to grow in relevance with each passing year.

Essentials: “Fotzepolitic”, “Heaven or Las Vegas”, “Wolfe in the Breast

#cocteau twins #heaven or las vegas #4AD

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thebandcampdiaries · 5 years

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Happy Curmudgeons introducing brand new single: 2nd Chances

Happy Curmudgeons is a band with a very diverse sound and a vast range of sonic textures in their music. What is really special about their sound is definitely the fact that the group seamlessly combines elements of folk, Americana, country, but even rock and pop. Their musical frontiers are very open, and much like the pioneers of great American music, they always push forward, looking for new ideas and elements to incorporate in their diverse and distinctive sound.

There recently released single, second chances, is actually a fantastic production, and an excellent example of what I am talking about. At first glance, the arrangement might sound simple, in a good way. However, this is a deceptive blend of simplicity, because there are many amazing details to this production, making it stand out among the crowd. For example, the acoustic guitars have a very nice chorus-type effect, which is not usually found in this kind of music very often. I feel like it contributes to the uniqueness of the song, giving this song a special vibe reminiscent of 80s and 90s artists such as R.E.M. or The Replacements, only to mention but a few. There is also room for a cello part, making the intro of the song even more dynamic and cinematic. There is really something special about the timeless combination between acoustic instruments like guitars and drums with the vocal and emotional leads of a cello, adding more depth to the mix.

The vocal melodies come in at about 30 seconds into the song. The singer's voice is bright, sultry, and extremely dynamic, highlighting her incredible vocal range and emotional delivery. In this case, the vocal melody of the song makes me think of a classic track - "Sweet Home Alabama," as made famous by Lynyrd Skynyrd. There is a similarity here, but not a rip off! In this case, the similar melody explores a more understated and intimate sound, focusing on a more introspective approach. With lyrics such as "Driving down this lonely highway," the song actually paints a vivid picture, giving the listeners a sense of connection with the story.

"I Believe in Second Chances, I've got faith in me and you -" With this positive line, the song alternates darkness with light, showing that although life can be like a lonely road, there is always a drive to shoot for the stars, and start again, looking for a chance to start anew. Sometimes, being human means that we do not necessarily make it the first time. We might need to take the fall, get back up again, and look for a second chance to get back on the road, even if we don't know where it goes or what we will find while we get there. Ultimately, as a listener, I'm interpreting this song as a very honest and passionate outlook on what is simply the human condition. It is all about embracing the fact that we can't control the outcome of the situations that we put ourselves into in our lives. Still, we do have the power to stay positive, aim high, as well as having faith - not only in ourselves but in others around you. It is refreshing to hear a song with such a selfless, positive message to inspire and engage people. In a day and age where there is so much shallow music out there, it is terrific to be able to hear something that pulls the right heartstrings, finally!

The music is just as excellent as the lyrics and the concept, with some simple, yet atmospheric acoustic guitars, the aforementioned cello lines, and a crisp drum sound. The snare drum has a very special sound, almost reminding me of one of those vintage marching snares, but you can really hear the bottom sound and the snares creating such a haunting texture.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this song to any fan of artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Wilco, Calexico, R.E.M., or even Big Star, among others.

Once again, Happy Curmudgeons set out to prove that you do not need a complicated arrangement or overly intellectualized lyrics if you want to create a piece of art that is meaningful and easy to relate to. On the contrary, keeping it simple is the way to go if you want to connect with people the right way. Just have a look at artists such as Bob Dylan, the Beatles or even more recent performers like Elliott Smith. Some of their best songs are by far the simplest!

Find out more and listen to "2nd Chances."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiqK5R983T0

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waveridden · 4 years

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jaz’s completely necessary 900 word folklore track ranking

honestly this was really fun to write i like it when i have opinions about music. prayer circle that the readmore works and let’s go

1. exile (ft. bon iver): first of all what a fantastic and unexpected collaboration. second of all i think their voices sound amazing together. third of all i think the song is stellar. fourth of all the first time i heard “you never gave a warning sign” vs “i gave so many signs” i dropped the pen i was holding

2. cardigan: what is there to say that hasn’t already been said tbh. i don’t always vibe with lead singles but i think this was the right choice i think it’s lovely. also, i took a “which tswift song are you” uquiz and got cardigan (also i would be remiss if i didn’t say i have swapped exile/cardigan on this list like a dozen times)

3. the 1: “we were something, don’t you think so?” is EXACTLY my shit. i think it’s such a good opening track it sets the mood for the album so well and it’s so lyrically strong and the only reason it’s below cardigan is a personal resonance thing

4. betty: sounds so much like fearless/speak now that it hardcore activated nostalgia brain and also i think it’s just a terrific fucking song. this is a good album for storytelling and i think this is probably the strongest Story (TM) on this album.

5. mad woman: i normally don’t like preachy songs like this but i think this one invokes the right imagery and is produced in the right moody way that it lands for me. i think the lyrics about her own life are a little cheesy (seems like wanting me dead has really brought you two together) but the rest of the song more than makes up for it

6. august: sounds a little speak now/red which is fun. i don’t love the vocal performance (a little thin/breathy for me) but it’s a song that Sounds like the summer love story that it’s trying to tell and i think that’s hard to do

7. hoax: i really just fucking love this piano line and also the last two lines of the chorus are fantastic. but like… this album has a lot of piano-centric ballads but this is the one that has stuck with me

8. the last great american dynasty: another very good story song although admittedly i think this one loses something in the fact that it’s So specific? i know that some people like that about it but i think the fact that she was limited to things that actually happened makes it weaker. i have to be straight up, the first time i heard it i couldn’t catch most of the lyrics and i thought it was about people giving her shit for dating a kennedy and i like that better than i like this lol.

9. this is me trying: i’m so ahead of the curve that the curve became a sphere... they told me all my cages were mental so i got wasted like all my potential… it hits! it’s moody and it’s nice. also to be abundantly clear i think it’s lyrically WAY stronger than tlgad but i also think it’s significantly weaker musically

10. seven: very very sweet and i love it. i historically have not liked tswift songs about childhood and children but this one was nice and it landed for me. a little forgettable? but after a few listens it stuck.

11. mirrorball: i am a big huge fan of the super poppy production/melody but unfortunately the fact that the lyrics are entirely drivel hurts it a lot

12. my tears ricochet: it is just the wrong side of melodramatic for me. like, the lyric “my tears ricochet” drives me insane because it feels like something 2009 “teardrops on my guitar” taylor would write and it’s so much weaker than the rest of the album. i love the story, i love other lines in this song, but in general it’s just like an inch too far across the line. also i wish the production were a little more sparse

13. epiphany: i like the instrumental on this? idk i don’t have much to say it’s like… fine.

14. illicit affairs: another one that’s just fine except i really don’t like the high notes peppered throughout the verses i think it’s a weird choice

15. peace: i think this is maybe the one that has the line “i see your brother as my brother” but i do not remember a single other thing about it. i feel like that’s a pretty scathing indictment on its own tbh

16. invisible string: this song frustrates me a lot because i could like it, but i don’t like the way it’s done. i love the idea of fate/being tied together/whatever, but i think the lyrics are awkwardly phrased (i understand that doing the whole “green was the grass in the park, teal was the color of the shirt you wore” thing puts the emphasis on the colors but i also think it’s hideous to listen to) and the plucky instrumental in the beginning drives me ballistic. bottom of the list because nothing i hate more than something that’s almost great

#waveridden.txt #tswift tag

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watusichris · 7 years

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Replacements, 1st Time Around

In 1983, the Replacements hit Los Angeles for the first time. I followed them around for a week or two. This story, from the Dec. 2, 1983 issue of the Los Angeles Reader, is being posted in acknowledgement of the band’s splendid live album “For Sale,” which is being released on Friday by Rhino and is utterly tremendous. ********** During a Midwestern winter, when the seasonal temperatures gravitate toward the arctic, a rock ‘n’ roll band has to play hard just to stay warm. Judging from the rather limp records that emanate from the region, there are a lot of frozen butts in the heart of the nation. Midwestern rock hasn’t had much to offer since the garage-band heyday of Chicago’s Shadows of Knight and Minneapolis’ Litter, besides the pre-punk spasms of the MC5 and the Stooges.

Last week, though, a Minneapolis band pulled through L.A. and proved that there’s no energy crisis in their particular basement. The Replacements knocked out four superior sets of go-for-the-throat rock ‘n’ roll in the local clubs. I’ll borrow one of their song-title catch phrases: Color me impressed.

The Replacements have been together since 1979. They’ve released three records’ worth of original material (two albums and an EP) that could blow Violent Femme Gordon Gano’s precious little gonads from here to Maine. After hearing them on vinyl and in concert, there’s no doubt as to who the true Kings of the Great White North are.

The records, all on the Twin Cities-based Twin/Tone label, are all raw, unmanicured productions that opt for scurvy power rather than flat professionalism. Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, the debut album released in 1981, is a sort of song cycle of 18 tunes about cruising, partying, romance, dope, drunkenness, and the other senseless pursuits of adolescent Midwesterners. Its 1982 follow-up, The Replacements Stink, is a harder, louder eight-song EP that refines the first record’s sound into a murderous ball-peen screech. The latest LP, Hootenanny, is a lovably sloppy, diversely programmed collection incorporating blues, country, and folk elements hitherto unheard on the group’s recordings.

The great virtue of the Replacements’ records is a charming insouciance about polish, cleanliness, subtlety, taste, and other non-rock ‘n’ roll concerns. The band comes on like a disarming juvenile trash compacting of the pre-’66 Rolling Stones, the New York Dolls, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, and the Ramones. Crudity, humor (much of it self-deprecating), velocity, and high volume are the hallmarks of the Replacements’ style. The Dolls are their most obvious role model: The ear-scraping abandon of Bob Stinson’s guitar recalls Johnny Thunders at his most frenetic, and vocalist Paul Westerberg’s drunken, hoarse warbling is comparable to the caterwauling of the pre-solo David Johansen.

Westerberg writes the lion’s share of the band’s material, and it is largely terrific stuff. He’s at his best when confronting the trials of Everykid, whether goofing off at the bus stop (“Hangin’ Downtown”), lusting after the girl who works at the corner store (“Customer’), lamenting the necessities of lower education (“Fuck School”), or confronting the idiocies of average teenage social behavior (“I Bought a Headache” and “Color Me Impressed”).

Though many of the numbers are smash ‘n’ snarl thrashers, there’s enough variety in the Replacements’ sound to keep them out of sticky-floored identipunk corners. Many of Westerberg’s most effective and affecting compositions are ballads – “Johnny’s Gonna Die” (a premature elegy for the graveyard-bound Johnny Thunders, on Sorry Ma), “Go” (on Stink), and “Willpower” (on Hootenanny). The group also shows an increasing affinity for inebriated blues and boogie; the standard mode of Midwestern barroom bashing is utilized to ironic effect in “White and Lazy” (which sounds remarkably like the Dolls’ boozy remake of Bo Diddley’s “Pills”) and “Take Me Down to the Hospital.” Westerberg is also reportedly a prolific writer of folkish solo material: This side of his style is reflected on record in the non-LP B side “If Only You were Lonely” and the caustic, basement-tapey self lampoon “Treatment Bound,” which concludes Hootenanny: “We’re getting’ noplace as fast as we can/We get a nose full from our so-called friends.”

This daffy catalog of styles, as well as some wonderfully blatant cops (everything from the Dragnet theme to “Frere Jacques,” “Oh Darling,” and “The Twist”), combines with Westerberg’s nose-thumbing take on dumb youth angst and the band’s flat-out, heated performance methodology to make for rock ‘n’ roll that is alert, aware, pointed, and funny. On their records (and I wouldn’t part with any one of them), the Replacments are unbeatable. Onstage, even when approaching the boundary line of chaos, they’re among the most special of live bands.

I don’t know where you suckers were last week, but the Replacements shows in L.A. were without exception under-attended. Well, you blew it, chumps, and don’t let it happen next time. This is a band that can knock you out of your Nikes even on the slowest and worst of nights, and they shouldn’t be missed.

Visually, they’re an unprepossessing lot. Paul Westerberg is an emaciated rail who looks like he rolled out of bed just before the gig; his sole concession to onstage fashion is some poorly applied eye makeup, which just emphasizes the beatness of his wardrobe (faded flannels and T-shirts and well-worn jeans) and the comatosity of his appearance. His face is perpetually creased by a knowing smirk; like Popeye, he speaks and sings out of the corner of his mouth.

Guitarist Bob Stinson is the group’s fashion plate: He usually plays in a polka-dotted skirt, or in his jockey shorts. The pocket of his blue denim jacket holds his toothbrush. His brother Tommy, the group’s bassist, and drummer Chris Mars are little babyfaces (the junior Stinson joined the group when he was 12). For all his youthful appearance, Mars possess a deadpan wit: Shortly after Kristine McKenna pegged him as a Yale student in the Times, Mars showed up on the Music Machine stage wearing a T-shirt hand-lettered in Magic Marker with “YAIL UNIVERSITY.”

“Loose” is a term that can be used to describe a typical Replacements set. Some songs do not so much end as break down in a clatter of drums and a squawk of feedback. Westerberg and the young Stinson are often to be found in conversation during a guitar solo. Blown key changes occur with regularity. The band is frankly casual about its performance demeanor. At the Music Machine last Wednesday, Tommy Stinson leaned over in midtune to grab a beer, and his bass immediately came both unplugged and unstrapped; he unhurriedly refitted himself, in time to pluck the last two notes of the song.

This is definitely a group who hold to their professed sub-professional standing (“The label wants a hit/But we don’t give a shit,” they sing in “Treatment Bound”), but their carelessness and blithe disregard for even the basics of showmanship never interfere with the impact of the show.

They heave their way through a set at eardrum-crushing volume, with Westerberg, his vocal cords ready to snap at any moment, screaming to be heard over the din. Bob Stinson’s Fender spits out withering clusters of spike-toned notes, underpinned by Westerberg’s brutishly loud rhythm guitar. And Tommy Stinson and Mars provide a relentless backup. As wiggy as the band can get, its musicianship is generally of the highest caliber.

They provide more than a few laughs, too. They’ll switch instruments to play the title track from Hootenanny. They’ll rock out on “The Marine Corps Hymn,” essay Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’” or T. Rex’s “Twentieth Century Boy,” or perform a country-and-western version of their “God Damn Job” (lyric: “I need a god damn job/I need a god damn job/God damn it/God damn it/God damn/ I need a god damn job”).

I got hooked on the Replacements’ energy and sharp-incisored humor at Club Lingerie two weeks ago, where, looking a bit singed from the road, they wowed some of the assembled waxworks with a ragged but involving set. I wound up following the group around town during the next few days. They did a sizzling marathon hour-and-a-quarter show at the Cathay de Grande on Monday night, and a tough, nutty, erratic one at the Music Machine on Wednesday.

Musically, they were at low ebb at their return Cathay engagement on Thanksgiving, but that set may have been the most revealing of all. The house was filled with Mohawked dolts panting for Social Distortion. The Replacements, who could easily have mowed their audience down with a show comprising their short, fierce, hardcore-styled tunes, instead opted for the opposite tack. They began the show with the blues shuffle “White and Lazy” and made their alienating way through every ballad, country tune, and slow number in their repertoire. The leftover turkeys in the crowd were gobbling as the set oozed its way to a conclusion, but it was the Replacements who were having the last laugh on the fashion-conscious ex-surfers in leather. As Tommy Stinson said in mock admiration, “Wow, punk rockers.”

Remember when punk rockers gave their audiences the raspberry (or worse), disassembled rigid expectations, and guffawed at the status quo? At the Cathay on Turkey Day, the Replacements proved something besides the fact that they are a great rock ‘n’ roll band. They proved that they may just be the last real punk band in America. Come back soon, guys – there are some other folks in this sleepy town who could use some waking- and wising-up.

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cto10121 · 7 years

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mulling over my recent rewatch of the hungarian retj (rómeó és júlia) some more and while it’s still one of the best versions of the show, some things just stuck out like a sore thumb, such as

the choreography. now, i’m not in any way an expert or even amateur on dance, but 90% of this duda éva mess featured the dancers hopping around like bunnies and doing weird YMCA-style hand movements like some nineties nightmare. lehetsz király is especially an offender, but verona had some questionable choreography too. i’ve never liked the choreography in this version much, but in this rerun it was somehow more glaring. i guess since then i’ve gone back to the french choreography and since redha was directly inspired by jerome robbins’ work in west side story...well, yeah...

the part where one of the capulet servants gets kissed by a hyper rómeó after le balcon and the servant recognizes rómeó as a montague becomes unintentionally amusing when you consider that in this version, the differences between the montagues and capulets in terms of clothing and physical appearance are subtle and minimal at best, nonexistent at worst. how the hell did she recognize rómeó as a montague???? by his blue blouse? they’re not color coded, so blue wouldn’t automatically mean montague in this world. so what gives?

speaking of which - ditching the color-coded dress, while it arguably adds more ‘‘realism” (not really, imho), muddles the action a lot. in the original french, you always knew who was what, and not only that, but there were strong characteristics in their dance that differentiated them more. the montagues were wild cards, the capulets more restrained and scheming. it affirmed the divisive reality of the feud. in the hungarian, most of the feud is fought by the head of the families, which is a reversal both of the french and shakespeare. during la vengeance, if it weren’t for benvolio’s presence on one of the sides, i wouldn’t have known which side wanted to protect romeo and which side didn’t. they were all dressed in the same sleek dark leather costumes. i guess that was the subtle ‘‘point” of the production, but unless you show a difference other than clothing, all you’ll have is just people of the same ethnicity, same gestures, same choreography doing shit to each other and little understanding of why. so though the hungarian actually brings out the feud more and its violence, the french is actually more convincing

that orchestra. this may be due to the poor sound engineering of the dvd that privileged the singers than the instruments, but it still sounds awfully tinny and weak. the strings were so thin they were threadbare; the tempos were all over the place. songs that are definitely not meant to be played fast were played fast and other parts were slowed down to an excruciating degree. the arranger cut out the solos in the latter part of the choruses, so the hungarian versions feel more repetitious than even the french, even when they add new lyrics. they obviously got more of their budget toward the FIRE ACROBATICS and neat stage effects

the acting. better than the french, obviously, since these are theater-theater people trained to do everything all at once. the script gives more of a plot and story to the musical-operetta than the french, which was more concert-based. but because of the dramatic needs of the story, the singing on stage suffered A LOT. imagine almost 3 hours of shouting and belting and everyone running around like kids high on candy. my ears were ringing at the end something awful. the french had pacing problems too, but that was because the addition of extraneous songs that could have been cut (le pouvoir, le poète, however much i like the latter) and some lazy directing. the hungarian has more ear fatigue; the energy that they establish is not maintainable for long. as a result, damien sargue sang much better, with better expression, than attila dolhai, who sounds like an operatically trained singer. hommonay zsolt as párisz was also operatically trained, it sounds like, but even at times didn’t sound good at all, especially during la folie, which should have been a picnic for him. at least the chorus was consistently good.

everyone’s an asshole except résj. this production went back to the original shakespeare characterizations for some of the characters, particularly for the capulets and the nurse, so yeah. but where shakespeare was more nuanced and realistic in his portrayal of the capulets, here they’re mostly unlikable dysfunctional assholes. paris was a sleazeball (though the show tried to say he cared about juliet enough to want to die in her tomb hahahaha no), capulet a doddering fool, lady capulet chronically unfaithful to the extreme, the nurse bawdy and particularly tactless, and tybalt a walking talking disaster on two legs, an epileptic severus snape if there wasn’t one (even my dad thought he'd make a great snape, so it’s not just my hp-addled brain) plus incest issues with his aunt and cousin. lady montague is fierce as fuck, but of course her role is lesser, benvolio acts almost exactly like mercutio except he has a more puppy-ish air and mercutio is more eloquent and cynical. mercutio was closer to the original shakespeare, which means he could be a douchecanoe at times. all in all, the only truly sympathetic characters are rómeó and júlia, which would be terrific (kill the trend of making them into stupid horny teenagers DEAD, i mean it) if it didn’t feel so cheap and vaguely manipulative. of course you’d sympathize with them - they’re the only ones who aren’t crazy, high, mentally troubled, or into the stupid feud in the first place. of course, they’re entertaining to watch, much like you would a trainwreck, but the melodrama does reach a point of incredulity.

speaking of résj, while they’re cute and all, (if way too old) they tend to feel almost extraneous to this production, so focused on the feud and violence as it is. this should have been called egy orült villág or something like that because that’s really what it was.

the song order. the show does make it work, barely, but it’s still jarring and strange, even after all these years. i can’t get over c’est le jour and c’est pas ma faute switched around, and tu dois te marier following verona must have been one of the strangest decisions they’ve ever made. i would have liked to have been there in the room where they decided on this order. it isn’t really intuitive, just the opposite. it did solve some of the pacing problems of the french, but musically i think it suffered a lot. gyulölet and szívbol szeretni being close together was weird as well, although the former made for a good number. how strange

the ho yay is incredible in this version. like, purposely fanfiction-y. i never paid much credence to the tycutio and bencutio shippers of the shakespeare fandom, but someone in this production obviously did. mercutio is out-and-out bi, but you can probably read anyone in this production as such. tybalt is an atomic bomb of repression so of course he gets read as such. it adds nothing to the production except, of course, the pleasure of seeing attractive people being all over each other. those wily fangirls are at it again

OH I HAD NEARLY FORGOTTEN - in párisz halála, paris’ death scene, he says that he believes rómeó was here to desecrate júlia’s grave, as in the original shakespeare. rómeó actually had to tell him straight-up that júlia was his wife. but in la folie, the people were all crying that júlia’s death was rómeó’s fault, so obviously paris would have known that they had been together. so what gives? why wouldn’t hungarian paris make that connection and tried to turn him in on the basis that he was responsible for júlia’s death, officially ruled as a suicide? this is verona, after all, where everyone knows everything about everyone, and especially in the hungarian version they found out awfully quickly about résj. in the french, you sense that the capulets are in denial about the rumors (though french!capulet seems to hint that he knows based on his bitter ‘‘et je maudis tous ces amants’’ line) but the hungarian family seemed to have believed it quickly. so yeah, that’s a strange plot hole. i’m guessing galambos attila had to write this le duel reprise quickly and just fell back on shakespeare since there is no french equivalent.

#i'll just tag this #romeo et juliette #romeo es julia #rómeó és júlia #why not #this version had some good points though #the backstory on tybalt and his father was pretty on point #i liked it so much i used it for my version although i added a twist

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shantaedickson3-blog · 7 years

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GCSE Music Analysis.

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aaronmaurer · 5 years

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Music I Liked in 2019

Every year I reflect on the pop culture I enjoyed and put it in some sort of order.

2019 was a great year for music, at least among the pop-leaning alt and indie rock I enjoy. Several favorite bands came back and knocked their latest efforts out of the park and I gained new appreciation for some artists that I’d never really connected with before. In fact, there was so much good music this year, I stretched my self-imposed Top 15 to get a few more records in. Of the three lists I write up each year, music is easily the most subjective because there’s a lot more of it out there and it’s even more fragmented, so I definitely don’t make any claims that these are the best albums of the year; they’re just my favorites and come highly recommended.

15. Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center

Phoebe Bridgers and Conner Oberst teamed up for this surprise release which merges both of their styles. The record is more electric/grungy than Bridgers’ solo output and though I’m not a big Oberst fan, there is still much to like here, especially the lovely ode to musical discovery “Chesapeake.”

14. Native Tongue – Switchfoot

Switchfoot have established a pattern of alternating records I adore (Hello Hurricane, Fading West) with records that do almost nothing for me (Vice Verses, Where The Light Shines Through). Native Tongue swings back to the positive column with a mix of shiny anthems and contemplative balladry. Maybe the next one will break the cycle and stay in the “win” column?

13. New Jersey EP – Geographer / Let’s Try the After EPs – Broken Social Scene

The digital-age trend of artists dropping EPs rather than full-lengths continued in earnest this year with a lot of decent short-form offerings. Geographer’s New Jersey EP is my favorite thing he’s done in years and Broken Social Scene’s two Let’s Try The After releases continue the revitalized kick begun with 2017’s Hug of Thunder.

12. (I Am) Origami Pt. 3 – A Catacomb Hymn – John Van Deusen

Former Lonely Forest frontman Van Deusen released the third in a series of solo records last year, this one reconciling the alt-rock angst of Pt. 1 and the spiritual introspection of Pt. 2. There’s a lot to dig into here, but I’m especially fond of “Fly Away to Hell,” an appeal to finding hope through the natural world’s beauty in the midst of despair.

11. Without Fear – Dermot Kennedy

Kennedy’s first full-length record comes on the heels of a series of EPs and includes several tracks cherry-picked from those yet still coheres as a whole. Mixing singer-songwriter guitar folk with modern pop production (including vocal distortion effects and massive percussion) yields a sound that is simultaneously raw and polished – and immediate. Highlights include “All My Friends,” “Moments Passed,” “Lost” and “Dancing Under Red Skies.”

10. Everyday Life – Coldplay / Hyperspace – Beck

The latest albums from these two alt-rock luminaries were released on the same day and both have a lot to recommend them, even if they don’t quite reach the heights of the artists’ best work. Everyday Life is an interesting grab bag of ideas that doesn’t quite gel, but it is far better than anything on the prior A Head Full of Dreams. Tracks like the quietly pretty “Èkó,” the Owl John-interpolating “Champion of the World” and the Afrobeat breakdown “Arabesque” are peak Coldplay. Hyperspace is Beck doing vaporwave, a mostly chill dive into existentialism that finds a medium between the neon pop of Colors and the mellow beauty of Morning Phase.

9. Rattlesnake – The Strumbellas

While even Mumford & Sons have tired of the banjo-rock trend they re-popularized, there are still some terrific folk-leaning bands keeping the tradition alive. The most recent record from the Strumbellas is a collection of upbeat anthems that celebrate life and hope with an honest tinge of existentialism. This is perfectly encapsulated on closer “All My Life,” an ode to the paradoxical nature of love (whether divine or romantic) as both heart-breaking and life-giving force.

8. I Am Easy to Find – The National

I Am Easy to Find is the National at their more gorgeously languid. With the inclusion of a chorus of female vocalists (one of three in a trend on this list), the music here expands in new directions. As a sister piece to a short film by artist/designer Mike Mills (Beginners), this record has the feel of a curated museum piece – in the best possible way. “Not in Kansas” references my favorite R.E.M. album, “Where Is Her Head” is all propulsive stream-of-consciousness, and the closing sequence from “Hairpin Turns” through “Light Years” is as strong as anything else in the band’s catalog. (If you like this record, I strongly recommend “Think You Can Wait,” their earlier collaboration with Sharon Van Etten for the soundtrack to Win Win.)

7. Surviving – Jimmy Eat World

2016’s Integrity Blues marked a return to form for Jimmy Eat World after a couple uneven efforts and Surviving sets the bar even higher. Zach Lind’s percussion comes through as clearly and strongly as the robust guitar riffs, making this one of the best rock records of the year. The album’s middle stretch – from the synthy staccato of “555” to the quiet-loud dynamism of “One Mil” to the Futures-esque “All The Way (Stay)” to the soaring immediacy of “Diamond” – may be my favorite 4-song sequence of any album this year.

6. In the Morse Code of Break Lights – The New Pornographers

Another dose of shimmering power-pop from the Canadian collective, In the Morse Code of Break Lights finds A.C. Newman at his most lyrically direct, confronting the current political landscape with comparisons to fallen empires of antiquity on the likes of “Colossus of Rhodes” & “One Kind of Solomon.” Standouts include those tracks as well as the rhythmic pulse of “Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile” & “Opening Ceremony” and Simi Stone’s dynamic violin flourishes on “Dreamlike And On The Rush” & “Leather On The Seat.

5. Norman Fucking Rockwell! – Lana Del Rey

I’ve been on the fence about Lana Del Rey to this point, appreciating some of the singles I’ve heard but never fully engaging with her brand of arch romanticism. Whether her casually profane and resigned lyrics are authentically her or an ironic persona, NFR! is undeniable, reflecting the fatalism of young adulthood in Trump’s America with excellent songcraft. Jack Antonoff’s production floats her dreamy vocals over spare but lush instrumentation, creating a hazy atmosphere of malaise with maybe some glimmers of hope flickering through.

4. My Finest Work Yet – Andrew Bird

Another reflection of the times from an artist I’ve never quite connected with before, Bird’s wryly titled My Finest Work Yet focuses his droll wit on deconstructing American exceptionalism and imperialism. The wordplay throughout this record is ingenious, but it’s the compositions that really sell everything, with hooks a-plenty and warm jazz orchestration to counterbalance the heavy subject matter. And yes, there is some whistling.

3. NINE – blink-182 / Strange Love EP – Simple Creatures

If 2016’s California was preoccupied with recapturing the bratty pop-punk rush of Enema of the State, then NINE is blink-182’s return to the more experimental emo leanings of their self-titled 2003 release. While not quite as adventurous as that record, it’s definitely their best work since, featuring introspective lyrics, plenty of Whoa-Oh-Oh sing-a-longs and full integration of newest member Matt Skiba (who is deployed as much more than a Tom DeLonge surrogate this time out). Personal favorites include “Heaven,” “I Really Wish I Hated You,” “No Heart To Speak Of” and “Hungover You,” but this is a solid front-to-back listen.

2019 also saw Mark Hoppus team up with All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth for two EPs under the moniker Simple Creatures. Strange Love is the stronger of the two and leans into synthpop territory with bright choruses, providing a nice complement to NINE.

2. Father of the Bride – Vampire Weekend

Aside from the stellar “Harmony Hall,” the pre-release singles from Vampire Weekend’s latest didn’t really wow me and I worried that this record (the first without Rostam Batmanglij as a full member) would end their unimpeachable run. However, in the context of the album, everything works brilliantly, a clear case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Ezra Koenig is at both his most experimental (see “Sympathy” and “Flower Moon”) and most traditional (see “Unbearably White” and “We Belong Together”) here, to great effect. Danielle Haim contributes vocals to several songs (two of three of the trend), tying everything together and adding a new dimension to the sound, which is still recognizably VW while expanding in new directions.

1. American Football (LP3) – American Football

Though I missed American Football’s initial late-90s run, I was glad to catch up with the band upon the release of their 2016 reunion album. Their music lives somewhere at the nexus of emo, post-rock, shoegaze and jazz, with instrumental motifs that call to mind Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity opus “Goodbye Sky Harbor.” 2019 brought a third LP (fortunately without a 17-year wait) that I believe is their best yet. Featuring female vocalists on several tracks (three of three of the trend), this set of songs has more immediate hooks without sacrificing lush guitar cascades or meditative polyrhythms. A perfect record to get lost in on a quiet morning drive – or any other time, really.

You know what’s better than reading about music? Listening to it. Here’s a sampling of songs from each of these records if you want an easily-digestible mix:

Bonus! Reinterpretation Albums:

Reworked – Snow Patrol – For Snow Patrol’s 25th year, they put out this album of new recordings of some of their greatest hits (and a few new songs for good measure). These reinterpretations aren’t drastically different from the originals, but they share a consistent coffeehouse vibe that makes for nice Sunday morning listening and a fresh approach to a typical “Best Of” record (which, to be fair, they have done before).

Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ – Various Artists – One of the final projects Scott Hutchison was involved with before his death, Tiny Changes bucks the trend of reissuing a landmark album on its anniversary. Instead, to commemorate 10 years of their breakthrough release, Frightened Rabbit tapped some of their favorite artists and friends (including the likes of Ben Gibbard, Manchester Orchestra and Julien Baker) to record cover versions of the whole thing. While nothing can touch the raw emotion of the originals, these interpretations reveal new dimensions to many of the songs, especially Daughter’s hauntingly beautiful and gut-wrenching take on “Poke.”

#music

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dust Volume 6, Number 7

Stars Like Fleas

The summer rolls on in a very peculiar way, with masks and zoom calls and brief, furtive trips to the grocery and the growing realization that normal is months, if not years, away. Even so, the music remains excellent. Thank god it’s downloadable and accessible even in these strange days we inhabit. Here writers including Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Justin Cober-Lake and Ray Garraty consider improvised drone, precocious alt.country, experimental banjo tunes, rap metal and jazz. Enjoy.

75 Dollar Bill — Live at Café Oto (75 Dollar Bill’s Social Music series)

Live at Cafe OTO by 75 Dollar Bill

Before 75 Dollar Bill put out those widely revered LPs for Thin Wrist records, Che Chen and Rick Brown made a series of tapes. You could pick them up at shows, packaged in a clamshell case with a business card advertising their services. 2020 is a plague year, so it’s going to be a while before anyone hires them for another party or a parade, but this download-only release fulfills similar functions. It captures the band at a particular moment in time, and it gives you a chance to throw a few bucks their way. Do so and you probably won’t be sorry, because the late 2019 tour documented by Live at Café Oto was unique in 75 Dollar Bill’s history. Chen and Brown did the whole run of shows with double bassist Andrew Lafkas, but they also did nearly all of them without essential gear. It wasn’t until near the end, when they played in England, that Brown was reunited with the big wooden box that is his main percussive instrument. Spread across three sets, this three-hour long album shows how swell they sound when they’ve got a committed agent of swing adding his subtle shift to their Bo Diddley meets Mauritanian wedding music groove. If you know I Was Real, you’ll recognize many of these tunes, and you’ll likely appreciate the differences that 75 Dollar Bill works and reworks upon them.

Bill Meyer

Bandgang Lonnie Bands \ Bandgang Javar – The Scamily (TF Entertainment \ Empire)

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After Bandgang broke up, Lonnie Bands made a successful solo career. His only misfortune, apart from a murder rap prosecutors tried to stick him with, was that he picked up a no-talent partner Javar. Here, surrounded by aggressive but undistinguished artists Mascoe and Paid Will, Lonnie hasn’t learned lesson. Thankfully, Javar makes his presence on The Scamily scarce, and the second half is basically Lonnie’s solo effort with some guests. As usual, Lonnie makes himself busy in illegal activities: drugs, scams, pimping, firearms. He neatly sums up his bad deeds on “Me Too”: “You on that bullshit? Me too.” The Scamily is not that focused as last year’s KOD but Lonnie, with his slick rhyming and catchy hooks, always reinvents a bad man’s lexicon.

Ray Garraty

Sammy Brue — Crash Test Kid (New West)

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Sammy Brue is no longer quite the wunderkind he was when he released his first full-length at 15, but he is still quite impressive here on the follow-up, hitching the spit and fire and wordy angst of, say, Ezra Furman, to the downhome pyrotechnics of Bob Log III. “Teenage Mayhem” explodes with teenage aggression, building out a twitchy blues riff into a monumental rock chorus, while “Crash Test Kid,” is softer sonically, but just as unflinching in its narrative. “Skatepark Doomsday Blues” is epic and grandiose but carries it off, infusing an old man’s blues progressions with the eruptive feelings of young manhood. All the signs point towards Brue growing into his art. He’s already channeling raw emotion into sharp song structures and lyrics without sacrificing their force. It’s a drag getting old, but it doesn’t have to be a step back.

Jennifer Kelly

John Butcher — On Being Observed (Weight of Wax)

On Being Observed by John Butcher

English saxophonist John Butcher has a deep and diverse discography, much of it on CD. Since the standard of his playing is so high, and the settings and accompanists he selects so diverse, they’ve never been merely about documentation; you’d have to look hard to find a dud on the shelves. But as format preferences, economic shifts, and that damned virus turn everything upside down, Butcher has, like everyone else, found himself suddenly with plenty of time to comb through the hard drives and reassess the music stored there. And since CD manufacturing and distribution has been snarled up worldwide, what better time to transfer some of it straight to yours? On Being Observed comprises six solo performances recorded between 2000 and 2006, and you could not ask for a better introduction to what he does on his own. It features him in the studio, at a jazz festival, and in some unusual acoustic environments which afford a number of ways to understand what it means to read the room. Whether he’s playing to an audience or a 20 second delay in a dis-used gas storage facility, acoustically or amplified, using a soprano or tenor sax, Butcher’s tone is unmistakable, and his sense of how long to develop ideas and how to develop them is peerless.

Bill Meyer.

Carling & Will — Soon Comes Night (self-released)

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Carling & Will (banjo player Carling Berkhout and multi-instrumentalist William Seeders Mosheim) have spent the last few years working out new twists on old-time music. Their debut album Soon Comes Night takes another a step forward from their previous, more traditional sound. Much of the album relies on the interplay of banjo and electric guitar. The pair don't go for outre sounds, but Mosheim provides textures for Berkhout's banjo playing. “Lillie's Lullaby” offers a highlight, not only in its prettiness, but in its revelation of Berkhout's idiosyncracies as she shifts in and out of more typical patterns. The album in itself makes for a lovely collection of songs, but it has both the ups and downs of an act starting to find itself. Carling & Will have a distinct voice, and the more they work to develop that (probably by letting Berkhout get odder and Mosheim explore his voicings a little), the more impressive they'll become. If the pair decides to just focus on smaller updates to mountain music, they've already shown a worthy artistry in that.

Justin Cober-Lake

Cloud Rat — “Faster” (Self-released)

Faster by Cloud Rat

Like a lot of us, the folks in Cloud Rat have been cooped up behind walls, watching the world burn. But that hasn’t stopped them from making some terrific music. This new track, “Faster,” has been posted to Bandcamp as a benefit for Black Lives Matter-aligned organizations. The song is somewhat in the mode of their most recent EP, Do Not Let Me off the Cliff (2019). That record traded in the band’s characteristic grindpunk intensities for some weirdo experiments in dreampop, noise and gauzy gothic nightmare soundtracks. “Faster” isn’t quite as far out there, and longtime listeners of the band will recognize some of the textures of tracks like “Moksha,” “Raccoon” and “Luminescent Cellar.” The song starts and ends with some lovely acoustic finger-picking by guest musician Andy Gibbs of Thou. In between, there are clean vocals by Madison Marshall that border on the ethereal, and electric riffs that build and build toward majestic heights. Good cause, great tune.

Jonathan Shaw

Drakeo the Ruler – Thank You for Using GTL (Stinc Team)

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Recorded through a phone line from prison, with beats later provided by JoogSZN, Thank You For Using GTL right after its release was named best prison album since Penitentiary Chances, by now classic joint effort by C-Murder (still incarcerated) and Boosie Badazz (now free). It was too strong a claim to be true. On that duo’s album you can hear a sense of doom hanging over them. When all hope is lost, there is only a prayer, and even that can get lost on its way to God. There was no tomorrow. Drakeo the Ruler, on the other hand, raps like there is tomorrow. Even rough sound of voice recording and “This call is being recorded” tags are more like a necessary sound effect and a gimmick rather than an effect of reality (he couldn’t do it any other way). Strip this tape of all these effects, and you end up with an ordinary rap album, exactly like others released by dozens every week. Maybe there is no reason to thank GTL. It did us a disservice.

Ray Garraty

Holy Hive — Float Back to You (Big Crown)

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These super laid back funk soul cuts stay well inside the pocket, except when they veer unexpectedly into indie-folk. The funk parts come from one-time Dap King Homer Steinweiss, whose loose but transcendent way with a groove can be best heard on “Hypnosis.” Paul Spring, the singer, brings in the psychedelic falsetto, more Justin Vernon than Curtis Mayfield, but still radiant and chilling. The title track plays like a lost 78 soul classic, Spring’s mournful melody wafting skyward as big loopy bass notes and splayed jazz guitar chords drop into a slink and strut of snare drum. That’s maybe what you’d expect from Steinweiss’ Brooklyn soul revivalist resume, but elsewhere, there are surprises. “Red Is the Rose” sounds like Tunng, all space-bopped folk magic and electro-pinging drums, and “Be Thou By My Side” is lattice-picked folk without the slightest hint of syncopation. Both sides of Holy Hive have their sweetness, but only the funk stuff buries a stinger.

Jennifer Kelly

Dustin Laurenzi’s Snaketime — Behold (Astral Spirits)

Behold by Dustin Laurenzi

Here’s an irony for you. Composer Louis Hardin, whose habit of dressing up like a Viking and hawking his wares on the streets of mid-20th century NYC turned him into a bona fide attraction, may have conversed with jazz musicians, and shared a record label or two with them. But he didn’t really like jazz. Nonetheless, jazz musicians liked his music back, and they still do. The melodies are graceful, but malleable, and the Bach-meets-powwow rhythms have plenty of productive implications for a percussionist willing to work between the lines. After years of study Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi formed Snaketime, a project named after one of the composer’s rhythmic notions, that turned seven of his compatriots loose upon the Moondog book. Maybe loose isn’t quite the right word, since Laurenzi’s arrangements show deep respect for the original melodies and their exotic vibe. But there’s not a lot of music that can’t be made a bit better when you ask bass clarinetist Jason Stein to improvise from its foundations. This half-hour long tape adds four tunes to the seven on last year’s excellent LP Snaketime: The Music of Moondog, and any one of them could have made the cut if Laurenzi had been given enough rope to make a it a double album in the first place.

Bill Meyer

MachineGum — Conduit (Frenchkiss)

Like its Pepto-Bismol-pink cover, these songs seem a bit over-sweet and undernourishing at first, but damned if their synth and disco and art-rock grooves didn’t start to catch on after a few listens. The project, launched in New York City with the mysterious appearance of pink gum machines, is not what you’d expect from a Strokes offshoot, but give Fabrizio Moretti credit for branching out. Here tight, “O Please”’s sleek, wah-wah’d guitars and fat-fingered bass throws off a funk shimmy, but soft, dream-y choruses add an element of electro-pop introspection. “Act of Contrition,” by contrast, swells and swirls with gothy new wave drama, but also vibrates with indie earnestness; it’s like the National playing a New Order cover. If you’d told me a month ago, that I’d be enjoying a super clean, super precise synth-dance album by a member of the Strokes, I’d have laughed, but here we are.

Jennifer Kelly

Phosphene — Lotus Eaters (Self-Release)

Lotus Eaters by Phosphene

Portland’s Phosphene drifts and drones in a satisfying vintage 4AD-ish way, the serene vocals of Rachel Frankel wafting out over intricate tangles of shoe-gazey guitars as Matthew Hemmerich pounds out motorik rhythms on the kit. This album, the band’s second, was written in the turbulent aftermath of the 2016 election, but it exudes a murky calm. In “Carousel,” for example, Frankel sings about how “everyone gets lost in their own power,” but the temperature remains cool, dream-like, lit by arcs of guitar sound and undergirded by a thudding mantra of bass (Kevin Kaw). The two singles run closest to pop. Bright, upbeat “Cocoon” is spiked with Spoon-ish piano chords, while “The Wave” damn near bubbles with girl pop exuberance. I can see why they’re leaning on those cuts, but I like the cloudy radiance of “Seven Ways,” the morose moods of “The Body” better.

Jennifer Kelly

Sara Schoenbeck / Wayne Horvitz — Cell Walk (Songlines)

Cell Walk by Wayne Horvitz/Sara Schoenbeck

Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Wayne Horvitz built to their first duo release slowly. They've been playing together since the previous decade in Horvitz's Gravitas Quartet, working together in various styles. The bassoon doesn't necessarily lend itself to jazz, but Schoenbeck's experience with artists like Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton — as well as in various orchestras and symphonies — has revealed her fluency in different languages. Horvitz and Schoenbeck develop that approach on Cell Walk, mixing composed and improvised tracks, moving from jazz to classical and back again, happily residing in a new music space. The pair's chamber background comes to the fore more than anything else, but the artists' experimental ideas and Horvitz's occasional electronics keep the duo moving forward. The album mostly stays cool, although a few tempo shifts and Schoenbeck's varied tone create unexpected energy any time the disc starts to settle. Schoenbeck and Horvitz fill an unlikely niche, but they also make a good case for expanding it.

Justin Cober-Lake

R.E. Seraphin — Tiny Shapes (Paisley Shirt)

Tiny Shapes by R.E. Seraphin

Ray Seraphin makes sweet, sharp songs out of guitar jangle and whispers that seem to nestle right in your ear. His first cassette under his own name after a stint in the slightly more abrasive Talkies kicks up a power pop dust and haze a la Luna or, more recently, Plates of Cake. Like these bands, however, he envelops smart, coiling melodies and wild spiralling guitar hijinks in daydreaming inchoate jangles. In “Streetlight,” Seraphin vamps and caroms in spike-y mid-temperature anthemry, crooning “And I won’t feel a thing,” and indeed there’s a misty, nostalgic remove around most of this album’s emotional content. Yet there’s also a classic pop shape that can’t quite be obscured by muttered, offhand delivery. “Fortuna” is the best bit, to my ears, a summer radio megahit heard from several rooms away, bittersweet and slipping away even as it plays.

Jennifer Kelly

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) (self released)

DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) by Stars Like Fleas

New York collective Stars Like Fleas are still gone, but the tracers and streamers left in the air by their passing continue to be entrancing. Whatever collapsed in the wake of their work on the follow up to their epochal LP The Ken Burns Effect can perhaps be glimpsed a little in the bulk of this first (and hopefully not last) release from what they describe as “a huge archive of live and session material.” As the title indicates, six of the 11 tracks here come from a radio session they did during their final tour (coming apart and leaving the final album unfinished upon their return to America). Along with a couple of Ken Burns highlights that session is all new material and it is as rich as anything they released during their lifetime. The collection is rounded out with some brief improvisations and another track intended for the final album, the 7” single “End Times”, and a wonderful performance of “Falstaff” from a Toronto show. Perversely and beautifully enough, the result is not only a must listen for fans of the group, it makes an excellent introduction for anyone who missed them the first time. Bring on the archives!

Ian Mathers

Thecodontion — Supercontinent (I, Voidhanger)

Supercontinent by Thecodontion

A death metal band entirely devoted to songs about ancient, paleolithic lifeforms and geological history? It’s not the most harebrained musical concept you may have heard — it even makes a sort of sense. What better musical genre to address such massive, atavistic and lumbering forms? Supercontinent is the Italian duo’s first LP, following 2019’s Jurassic EP. As its title suggests, this new Thecodontion record goes way, way back, to primal landforms, before continental drift assembled the earthball’s map into its current shape. Appropriately, the longest track on Supercontinent is “Pangaea,” named for the unimaginably huge late Paleozoic landmass. Thecodontion’s featured instrument is Giuseppe D’Adiutorio’s bass, which he variously thrums, hammers and shreds. He gets some pretty amazing sounds out of it, sometimes producing the soaring, moaning, keening sounds that Greg Lake coaxed out of his bass on the early King Crimson recordings. The proggy reference is pointed; Thecodontion’s high concept project smacks of prog’s grandiosity. But where prog shoots for the heavens, Thecodontion goes bone hunting. It’s interesting work.

Jonathan Shaw

Various Artists — Building A Better Reality: A Benefit Compilation (JMY)

Building A Better Reality : A Benefit Compilation by Various Artists

As Bandcamp’s choice to waive its portion of transaction proceeds in favor or certain needs and causes has evolved from an occasional to a monthly event, releases have started to appear which take advantage of both the event and the rapidity of production when no physical objects are being produced. George Floyd died under a policeman’s knee on May 25; this compilation was released just 24 days later, on Juneteenth. Brent Gutzeit of TV Pow secured 106 contributions from friends, friends of friends, and customers of friends — and that’s just the parties that this writer recognizes. They range in length from Kendraplex’s 58 seconds of metallic shredding to Joshua Abrams’ half hour of mournful clarinet and cathartic double bass. You’ll find acoustic protest music, swinging jazz, harsh noise, hip-hop, and a sound collage that includes sounds of protest and mourning. The participants include Simon Joyner, Jsun Borne, I Kong Kult, Jesse Goin, Chris Brokaw, AZITA, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and the Jeb Bishop Trio, along with many, many more. Have I listened to them all yet? Of course not! But the thing with a set like this is that you don’t need to. Put it into your shuffle play and it’ll yield surprises for years to come. Income goes to Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense Fund. and the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Bill Meyer

Michael Vincent Waller — A Song (Longform Editions)

A Song by Michael Vincent Waller

At first listen, you might not guess that composer Michael Vincent Waller’s new EP/song A Song is an improvised piece, and as the surrounding material on Bandcamp makes clear, that’s kind of part of the point. Composition vs. improvisation is the kind of duality where both sides are never really distinct, and Waller is both interested in the history of composers improvising and (possibly naturally) improvises in a way that’s not a million miles away from his compositions. Which also means that just on that first listen the 21 minutes of solo piano found here are frequently beautiful, whether patiently probing a set of arpeggios or momentarily going somewhere a bit darker and deeper near the end. Whether considered as work done around or between more composed ones or in its own right, A Song makes for both a fine follow up to Waller’s 2019 collection Moments and a brief thesis on the always permeable boundary between two methods of creation.

Ian Mathers

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6onmyshoulder · 6 years

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If You’re Reading This, Take Care

I was Sec 3 when my classmate asked me ‘dude, have you heard of drake?’. ‘Who on earth is that?’ was my reply. ‘Go and listen to Best I Ever Had and then tell me’. And well, the rest, is history. You can imagine Sec 3 me vibing out to ‘Best I Ever Had’ thinking that ‘sweatpants, hair tied, chilling with no makeup on, that’s when you’re the prettiest, I hope that you don’t take that wrong’ was a lyrical miracle. I was hooked to ‘Best I Ever Had’. The song was infectious and it stayed on repeat for at least a week, maybe more.

My friend continued to introduce me to more Drake songs and the more I listened to Drake, the more addicted I got to his tunes and verses. There’s something about his nasal voice rapping/singing over spacey/sample-driven beats. It’s...relatable. Not in the whole ‘oh I’m rich as fuck, I got enemies everywhere, my rollie costs 240k’ relatable but more like...’listening to a friend’ kind of relatable. I mean, the man pours his heart out on most of his tracks(ignoring most of his stuff beyond ‘If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late’) it really does feel like you’re listening to that one friend who has a shit tonne of problems and he’s just telling you everything that has happened from start to end since you last met him.

That doesn’t make him any less of a hip hop artist though, don’t get me wrong. While other mainstream rappers discuss a variety of issues, Drake’s tracks feel a little bit more closer to home. More personal at certain instances. I’ll never be able to fully relate to Kanye’s opulence on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or The Weeknd’s drug fuelled romances on Trilogy. With Drake, it just feels a little simpler and easier.

Take Care will always be one of my all time favourite albums for how reflective and moody the album was. There were sad songs, braggadocious songs and songs that just took a step back to help him/the listeners look at the big picture. I can’t talk about Take Care without talking about ‘Marvin’s Room’. The ultimate ‘sad boi’ anthem. The song that defines the current generation of sadbois. The song that I’ve listened to so many times just cause it puts me in THAT headspace. A pretty amazing album from top to bottom, albeit with a couple of filler tracks.

Insane production from 40 and just all round good verses from Drake. ‘Over My Dead Body’ opens up gorgeously with some piano keys and some soft, slightly lofi drums. ‘Guess you lose some and win some, long as the outcome is income.’ ‘Headlines’ highlights the struggles of being confident and insecure at the same time. The Weeknd opens ‘Crew Love’ with the line ‘take your nose off my keyboard’ and it sounds silky as fuck. Wayne and 3000 deliver some visceral verses on ‘The Real Her’, while Stevie Wonder’s harmonica outro on ‘Doing It Wrong’ makes me want to apologise to everyone I’ve wronged.

So Far Gone was the mixtape that Take Care seemed to be modelled after. ‘Houstatlantavegas’ will always be in rotation for me for the mood it creates. A kind of a sad melancholy. ‘November 18’ shouts out DJ Screw. And ‘Say What’ Real’ is really just Drake spitting over Kanye’s ‘Say You Will’ instrumental and it just sounds...poignant. The rapping/singing switches Drake does on ‘Lust for Life’ sounds amateur but in a good way, in a relatable way. He sounds like someone you’re close to who can kinda sorta sing but when you listen to them over a decent beat they sound kinda amazing? They way Drake croons ‘I forgot to call you on your birthday’ on ‘Sooner Than Later’ brings back 90s RNB vibes. Just an amazing mixtape for the reflective late night mood it set in terms of track consistency and subject matter.

‘If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late’(IYRTITL) was a surprise drop, a retail mixtape(goddamn it man just call it an album). A slightly different sonic landscape, it still functions as a late night album. But it presents a different perspective on the boy himself. His insecurities and heartbreak take a backseat, as his confidence and his Toronto upbringing take the spotlight. I’ve never been to Toronto but this album makes me want to visit it. It sounds like the culmination of a ‘late night drive around the city’ album. Neon lights, smoke and some music blaring from the speakers at 2am from within the vehicle. That’s the scene/mood this album sets. The production is clean as FUCK. It’s menacing, it’s stealthy and it just sounds like the beats have a shit tonne of attitude. The first 8 track stretch has to be Drake’s best run within a tape...like...ever. The first 8 songs are all brilliant, with ‘Energy’ and ‘Star67’ being the standout tracks.

‘Nothing Was The Same’ was a pretty good album, and while for me it doesn’t hit the highs of the previously mentioned tapes, I still love and adore songs like ‘Tuscan Leather’, ‘Pound Cake’(oooh the beat and both Drake and Jay-Z’s verses are GORGEOUS) and ‘Furthest Thing’. ‘Views’ was supposed to be Drake’s grand album, especially since it was released after a great run from Drake, from the release of ‘IYRTITL’ to the beef with Meek. But it ended up sounding like a tired album and Drake didn’t sound hungry or like he wanted it. And somewhere in that tired album, the brilliance that was ‘Feel No Ways’ was lost. An underrated Drake track.

Thank Me Later reminds me of secondary school because I listened to that album a lot during that period. The beats felt inorganic but Drake somehow made it work and it ended up being a decent album. ‘Fireworks’ was a pretty solid opening to the album and Jay-Z kills his feature on ‘Light Up’. ‘Karaoke’ and ‘The Resistance’ got me hooked on to Drake’s singing voice and that type of chill and mellow beats. ‘Shut It Down’ is still one of the best Drake songs out there. Period.

‘More Life’ was decent, and I’m pretty sure it got more traction for the whole ‘playlist’ gimmick what a goddamn clown. Songs like ‘No Long Talk’, ‘Passionfruit’, ‘Gyalchester’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’ all showcased a Drake at...not his best...but at his best SINCE ‘Views’. I gotta shout Skepta out for his feature on ‘Skepta Interlude’. Man brought his fucking A game. His flow was terrific, plenty of quotable bars and the beat was just insane. ‘Slice up work like pepperoni’ and ‘Spit in your face with extra bogey, it’s my time, i don’t flex a rollie, on cloud nine, a man’s extra cosy’ were my favourite lines from the entire...playlist...

When ‘God’s Plan’ came out, I was excited for ‘Scorpion’. I felt like the boy was back and he was ready for it. I genuinely thought he could drop a classic while addressing the whole Pusha T ting. But sadly, Drake hit us with a largely forgettable album bar the singles. It was 2 hours(?) long and like dude what the fuck, no one wants to listen to a 2 hour album man.

There’s a progression, a character development between each and every album, that is captured vividly in the tapes Drake puts out. While they’re way better at some points than the others(lol scorpion and views), it’s refreshing to see an artist continuously try something different and not stick to the same old formula. It kind of saddens me that I might never hear Drake sound as hungry as he once did, but if he reinvents himself, and does something better down the line, I am all up for it. The boy put me on to The Weeknd, Partynextdoor and Roy Woods. And I hope he continues finding smaller artists to support and bring them to the forefront.

I’ll always look up to Drake for some of his characteristics. And I’ll always be excited to listen to whatever he puts out, regardless as to whether it will disappoint me or whether I cop the physical and put it up on my wall. I’ll always be a Drake fanboy for the simple fact that most of his songs and tapes defined different eras of my life, and continue to do so, as I add multiple memories to the same songs, over and over again. Thanks for looking out for the s0ftboiz.

‘That’s why every song sound like Drake featuring Drake.’

OVO

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