The Horrors - Primary Colours

You know, I vaguely recall seeing a promo picture of these guys a couple of years ago. It was in Rolling Stone or Spin or something like that. At the time I was nonplussed: besides the unctiously fawning press release - which was obviously aimed at teenage girls - the dudes looked like ridiculous, wannabe goths in the accompanying photo. Like they were advertising for Hot Topic or something.

I can’t speak for what they sounded like back then, because I had already dismissed them as a contrived marketing gimmick or at best a cheap rip-off of The Cramps. From what I understand though, they’ve altered their sound considerably for this sophomore effort; bringing in big time production help from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Chris Cunningham.

The result is kind of like b-movie meets garage rock – a weird hybrid of gothic surfiness and blood-shot paranoia, where warbled synthesizers and entropic distortion collide with the stark and hollow coldness of vocalist Faris Badwan, who has definitely listened to more than his share of Joy Division. Though he sounds like Ian Curtis more often than not, Badwan does a cockney-ish punk thing pretty well too on songs like Mirror Image and Three Decades.

The use of synthesizers (tonally and in the manner they’re employed) is one of the more distinguishing aspects of Primary Colors. Swathes of them warp and refract into distended melodies adding to an already disorienting amalgam of reverb-drenched guitars, Phantom-of-the-Opera organs and grinding amplified feedback.

On Three Decades synths screech like twisting steel and surf guitars are bent and stretched to the point of creating an unsettling Doppler-like effect.

Who Can Say, probably the most pop-friendly tune, is a love song undercut by dirty, serrated guitars and giddy synthesizers saturated with reverb until they create a kind of hall-of-mirrors-like sound a la My Bloody Valentine.

The lyrics, when decipherable, are predictably morose, but what else could you really expect a band calling themselves The Horrors.

Not everything is so over the top though. The sprawling 8-minute, synthetic odyssey, Sea Within a Sea is melancholic and almost Depeche Mode-eqsue. My favorite of the lot, it's a lovely way to send things off after all the carnage.

I reckon you could pick apart the obvious influences: Joy Division, The Smiths, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, My Bloody Valentine, etc., etc.; wax condescendingly about how they’re just the sum of these various reference points. You could ridicule the blatant Halloween/b-movie shtick. You might label the approach pretentious or heavy-handed.

None of this, in my opinion, changes the fact that it's a flawlessly executed hybrid of dark garage rock, gothic punk and psychedelic noise.

http://thehorrors.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/thehorrors

The Flaming Lips / Star Death and the White Dwarfs - The Dark Side of the Moon

Wow! Just… wow. The Flaming Lips have got to be the only band with the stones to attempt something like this, and surely the only one with enough creativity and artistic integrity to pull it off.

For those who dug the sound of Embryonic – their obtuse, experimental double album released back in October – this will probably go down well (in fact if you’re one of these folks, it’s worth checking out even if you’re sick to death of The Dark Side of the Moon or were never a Floyd fan in the first place).

The Lips’ re-imagining of this almost canonical record produces an effect that is truly surreal. Like the original on an ephedrine bender and no sleep – the experience is more paranoid, more hallucinatory and generally more unsettling. The tone is set in the first few seconds when Henry Rollins (who’s been tapped to do all the speaking parts) says, “I’ve been mad for fucking years. Absolutely years … I’ve always been mad”

As with Embryonic, the aesthetic dept to early Ummagumma-era Floyd is palpable; thus in a neat stroke of irony it’s essentially an update of classical Floyd with an approach owing in part to pre-classical Floyd.

Did I mention it was loud? Yes, really loud. Loud and weird. The amplitude’s been cranked and the freak-out knob is at least at 11 - smearing the pristine production of the original into a chaotic mash of buzzing ambiance and crunchy distortion.

The chiming clocks at the beginning Time, for instance, have been replaced by digital, saw-wave alarms and a full on air-raid siren, and the song itself is inverted; with the intro being noisy and the verses/chorus being subdued.

Sex-obsessed Canadian shock-tress, Peaches, was a surprising though ultimately brilliant choice for That Great Gig in the Sky. The cultured elegance of the original tune has been replaced by a chugging, rhythm-heavy groove that’s more than a little rough around the edges. And Peaches’ vocals have been run through a guitar pedal, contorting her normally mid-coital moan into the tortured howl of some orgasmic BDSM fetish involving electrified clamps.

Money retains its original bluesiness, but Wayne Coyne’s vocals get the vocoder treatment and the result sounds like robotic alien lounge music that might fit in a David Lynch film or maybe a tavern on Tatooine. Us and Them sounds positively meditative compared to the rest of the madness.

Because Pink Floyd’s most celebrated record has become practically ubiquitous in the years since its release – you can hear it in the dentist office FFS –one could be forgiven for overlooking just how groundbreaking-ly weird it actually was. The Flaming Lips, having now put their own spin on it while staying true to the original spirit of weird, continue to do whatever the hell they feel like. And I continue to applaud.

http://www.flaminglips.com/

Oh No - Dr. No's Ethiopium

Stones Throw beatmaker and younger brother of Madlib comes through with some solid hip-hop productions, which have been getting serious play in the old ipod as of late.

In the vein of Donuts or a Beat Konducta release, it’s a collection of instrumentals (36 to be exact) loosely assembled in mixtape fashion – basically a showcase for what Oh No’s been doing lately.

Like Dilla and his older bro, Mr. – excuse me – Dr No has that innate ability to make music that does a lot without doing much. His style’s lax, almost slapped together feel belies the kind of ability you can’t teach. No fancy techniques; no DSP trickery, just a good ear, an expansive collection of obscure records and a knack for flipping an oddball sample into a hot track.

From the West Indies to Africa; Central Asia to the far East and back to the American South and Motown; Ethiopium is riddled with sounds from across the globe. Chanting monks and sitars sit next to synthesizers and reggae horns; bluesy guitar riffing, Hammond organs. Vintage drums and the ambiance of well worn vinyl, make these beats snap and crackle with the savory grittiness that characterized the hip-hop of yore.

Madness starts with what sounds like a banjo stretched into a warped loop and then coupled with a fat analog bass line and some high pitched Dr. Dre-synths. The Funk achieves it's namesake with hand-clapped drums that stutter, a blaxploitation-style guitar sample and some funky-ass horns. Adventure is a simple idea made interesting with the addition of a backward snare, a tambourine, some cymbal crashes and cut up Bollywood vocals. The saxophone led Juke Joint is reminiscent of the kind jazzy boom-bap perfected by Greyboy.

http://www.stonesthrow.com/ohno

http://www.myspace.com/ohnodisrupt

Joshua Wentz - Now is the Winter of Our Disconnect

This is something I stumbled on by pure happenstance. I was visiting my parents for the holidays, and there was a foot of snow on the ground. I decided to make a seasonally appropriate playlist and after I finished selecting the music, I named my little compilation Winter of Our Disconnect. I felt like my creation could use some accompanying art, so I entered the words into a Google image search and the sleeve for this is what turned up.

I was a bit peeved at first, because I liked my little literary play on words. Then I noticed Wentz was offering it for free download. I figured I might as well check it out; there may even be something on it that would fit the vibe of my mix.

I love the internetz.

______

Wentz, it turns out, is a singer/song-writer type, whose style blends song writing with classical, jazz and electronic influences. The six songs included here vary a bit, but they all share an almost tangible wintery-ness and production as cold and pristine as new fallen snow.

Simple, unadorned piano and an Art of Noise-y synth sound introduce the first song, Something. Upright bass, brushed drums and jazzy flourishes of keys, make this love song (one of the only tracks with vocals) the “warmest” moment on the EP. Later, on

Injuctioner, Wentz’ piano glides sleigh-like over icy, warbling synth bleeps, an upright bass line and live drums, which have been chopped up drum and bass-style. It’s a lovely piece of atmospheric D&B that would have been right at home with LTJ Bukem and Wax Doctor. Whiteout - also relatively uptempo - has a much more straight forward groove. Rolling synthetic bass, Melodica and step-y drums accented with jingle bells, frame its glistening piano arrangements.

The slightly creepy feel of Tundra Kingdom reminds me of a Boards of Canada interlude. It's a drum-less piano and synth piece, that lives up to its namesake; evoking the forlorn solitude of a desolate wind-swept plane in the dead of winter. The album’s final song Exit, is a beautifully simple piano piece – less than a minute long – that fades gently into the frigid night.

Score! And the even bigger score was stumbling on Alone Tone, a site that allows artists to share their music with the world on the condition that it be offered for free. Not for how much you want to pay or after you sign up for their service, but free.

http://www.joshuawentz.com/

Fat Freddy's Drop - Dr Boondigga & the Big BW

The seven musicians that comprise this New Zealand collective are all veterans of Wellington’s live music scene and it shows. They play well to each other's various strengths and influences and in doing so create a unique blend of conscious roots-reggae, funk, jazz and spacey, electronic dub.

In lieu of a drummer, rhythm is handled by founding member and multi-instrumentalist Chris Faiumu aka DJ Fitichie, who uses his MPC to create various grooves from the standard hip-hop variety to Caribbean-style syncopation to 4-to-the-floor techno. Keyboards add synthesized atmosphere and dubbed-out sonics as well as hefty amounts of sub-bass to the mix. A versatile three piece horn section(trumpet, saxophone and trombone) provides much of the flavor that makes FFD’s sound so distinct - bringing the funk, soul or reggae accordingly. Then there’s vocalist Dallas Tamaira’s velveteen croon, which holds the whole thing together. The resulting product is something like how a futurist Motown record made in a Studio One echo chamber might sound.

Dr Boondigga.., the group’s sophomore release, is divided into nine songs which sprawl out over 70+ minutes without ever really losing focus. The listener is eased in nice and smooth with Big BW, a luscious piece of neo-soul. The drums slap hip-hop-style and the sleek horns, spacey synthetic ambience and rolling bass line would be right at home with the G-Stone dub of and downtempo of Kruder & Dorfmeister et al.

The Raft is an elegant play on roots reggae ala Midnight, but modernized with electronic flourishes. The pulsing rhythms of ShivaMan and Wild Wind take the dub aesthetic deep into electronic country, while still maintaining a live feel. On both tracks, Tamaira’s voice floats in and out of a low-end chasm where guitars, horns and keys reverberate and various sound effects ricochet in classic dub tape-delay style.

Other pieces, like The Camel, featuring singer Alice Russell, lean heavier toward traditional American sounds. The song’s guitar lick and horn blasts are decidedly funky, but the hook and especially Russell’s raw vocal delivery create a satisfyingly bluesy edge. The Nod moves even further into Americana, heading south toward New Orleans jazz territory; with lyrics about cooking up soul food and a raucous brass breakdown - complete with tuba - that’s got all the bawdy energy of Bourbon Street.

Pull the Catch, the album’s first single (and probably my favorite song) incorporates all the of band's many influences. Beginning with a lo-fi, retro-dancehall riddim, it blasts forward in time and fidelity; shape-shifting into high-tech, Gucci, Spacek soul. The groove is laid-back but deliberate. The reggae guitar-picking, Tubby-esque horn arrangements and galactic atmospherics especially well suited to Tamaira’s vocal style.

There are great live bands and there are great studio bands. Fat Freddy’s Drop is a phenomenal live band who’ve have gone and made a great studio record. Props.

http://www.fatfreddysdrop.com/

http://www.myspace.com/fatfreddysdropnz

Cougar - Patriot

Cheers to the Turbo and his Jambox for emailing this to me a couple of weeks ago; it was a nice surprise. Cougar, as I recently discovered, is a Wisconsin-based group that specializes in a surprisingly eclectic brand of instrumental rock.

Some might be tempted to categorize it as post-rock whatever the hell that catch-all means (past the need for vocals?). But, given the (relatively) laconic nature of these songs and Cougar’s penchant for dynamic grooves and tempo changes, technically it would be better classed as “post-post-rock”; music for a generation of ADHDs whose attention spans are far too truncated to handle something like Tortoise.

I’d liken their general sound to a more rocking-ly up-tempo Explosions in the Sky or a significantly less mechanized Battles.

These eleven compositions that comprise this record, twist and morph into and out of each other- effortlessly incorporating elements of folk, shoegaze, world music and blues as well as harder rock and hip hop. Overall, there’s an almost tangible electronic affect and yet, barring some creative sampling and percussive use of glitching/stuttering, the music is decidedly organic.

Like Battles, these guys are all excellent players – in fact, tight isn’t a strong enough descriptor for the rhythm section; fucking vice-like would be more accurate.

Ringleader David Henzie-Skogen’s drumming often strays into mathy polyrhythmic territory, but there are also more than a few casual nods toward hip hop. Rhinelander for instance, is pure knock-your-block-off boom bap that mixes up ethereal church choir vocals with a big gnarly bass line and some minimal guitars with Ratatat-style processing.

The obvious diversity of influences swirling around the mix really keeps things from ever getting too stale. Pelourhino is gently processed folk anchored by a gorgeously delicate harp part. Beginning with celestial atmospherics, harp and acoustic guitar, its shuffling drums build into a percussive workout without ever abandoning the songs amiable grace.

And on the other side of the spectrum are cuts like Heavy into Jeff and the minute-and-a-half-long Thundersnow. This kind of distorted, full-throttled guitar riffing provides a great counterpart to moments like Pelourhino and the balmy tranquility of mostly acoustic Absaroka.

I don’t know about you, but for me just the words “instrumental” and “rock” together, conjure ideas of murky indulgence as well as things like bong hits and excessive use of the word “dude.” Patriot all but obliterates these preconceptions by the time opener Stay Famous builds to a noisy crescendo at three minutes in.

http://www.myspace.com/cougarsound

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

That old adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, should really be something like, “judge a book by its cover at your own caution.” Of course we’re all constantly making snap judgments about everything from the way people dress to how we think some future situation might be. It’s just that remaining stubbornly attached to this false knowledge, might cause one to miss out on something great.

Case in point: I’ve known of the Fuck Buttons for some time but had never got around to checking them out because, for some wrong-headed reason the name - though admittedly great - conjured images of middle-of-the-road, dance/rock (I like some of that stuff, just not enough to go out of my way for it).

Well about a month ago I was eating lunch with a friend who started talking about them. And what he was describing was nothing like the idea I had in mind.

So, on the strength of that conversation, I ended up grabbing Street Horrrsing and was like “holy shit!” My friend had been right. Instead of tired indy, electro-rock clichés the Buttons (Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power) sound was raw and noisey with a delightfully punky fuck-you-ness to . All mangled guitars, contorted vocals and squalls of feedback melded into solid edifices of exquisite frequencies.

And, as it just so happened they had a brand new album out. Oh, and it was produced by Andrew FUCKING Weatherall!

For this second release, they've refined the sound (as bands often do) - softening the edges slightly with the addition of synthesized textures - but not, thankfully, at the expense of the gritty noisiness that is their raison d’être. It's a sound that lies somewhere between the drones of Tim Hecker, My Bloody Valentine‘s wall of harmonic distortion and the rhythmic pulse of Berlin-style techno.

Tarot Sport is programmed in a very similar manner as its predecessor – with a sprawling progressive opening piece, that twists and morphs and eventually segues into a much shorter of kind of interlude.

Opening salvo, Surf Solar, begins with some flickering metallic pads before these creepy pitched-up, Exorcist-style atmospherics come crawling in. The ambiance, which lasts a full two minutes, is finally cracked by the introduction of methodical thwumping kick drums and then split wide open by a filthy serrated lead. The track builds and builds from an initial hiss to a growl to a full throated roar - stretching out to over ten minutes before dissolving into a malaise of static-y white noise.

Emerging from this sonic dust-cloud is Rough Steez, a strange mix of hypnotic rhythm and jarring sounds – its arpeggiating buzz-saw synths and mechanical squelches seem to float unnaturally over a shifting foundation of clickidy-clack percussion.

I’m really liking the decision to incorporate club elements as backbone for much of this album. The skeletal beats provide complimentary or at least neutral structures on which to drape the profusion of contrasting layers and textures which make up the compositions. This technique is exemplified in the hauntingly savage beauty of Space Mountain where simultaneously diametric streams - of melody and distortion; harmony and noise - cascade in every direction.

Hung and Power deserve credit, having beaten the odds by successfully following up a great album without merely repeating themselves.

http://www.fuckbuttons.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/fuckbuttons

Ghost - Remixes from the Edge

Wow, thanks Band Camp for hooking it up! First some new Paul White and now this Ghost thing.

I'd never heard of Ghost before, but apparently he's a fairly successful producer/engineer/DJ across the pond. Since he's giving away an album's worth of remixes he did for folks like At Jazz, Bonobo and Dabrye, I figured I could at least give it a listen. I'm Glad I did 'cause this shit, which runs the gamut from smooth, spaced-out grooves to bouncy club music to straight up grime, is tight.







Download It Here


http://musicbyghost.com

http://bandcamp.com/




I've now gone back and clocked this summers Freedom of Thought and I'm really into it. It's a collection of mostly instrumental Mo' Wax-style sounds that you can procure for a reasonable price on his his site. Hazah for the internetz!

Paul White - Sounds from the Skylight (Side A)

Of all the stuff I've discovered this year, nothing has been more unexpected or enjoyable than Paul White. I can't even remember exactly how I stumbled upon the London beat maker, but I do know it was blind chance.

White's Strange Dreams of..., released this summer on One Handed Music,
is a bizarre, Alice-In-Wondererland amalgamation of prog-rock, BBC programming, vintage psychedelia and Saturday television. A loopy, avant garde take on formula-plagued hip hop construction.

Now he's giving away half of his forthcoming album for FREE!.





Download it here

http://www.myspace.com/paulmw

http://www.myspace.com/onehanded

http://bandcamp.com/

Karen O and The Kids - Where The Wild Things Are OST

If you’ve not seen the movie yet, I strongly recommend doing so.

Spike Jonze (with some help from Dave Eggers) has pretty much done the impossible in creating a feature length film from what was essentially a picture book with maybe a paragraph’s worth of words. And not just any picture book, at that, but a legendary bedtime story that means countless different things to several generations of kids and parents.

Jonze fought studio execs tooth and nail through multiple delays, insisting he to do it his way, or not at all. This meant among other things, that instead of going the CGI wank-a-thon route (thank god), he hired Jim Henson’s Creature Shop to design the costumes. And, that instead of a nice Hollywood ending where everything is resolved and everyone lives happily ever after, there is residual doubt, ambiguity and a distinct sensation of what the hell did I just watch? His uncompromised final product is absurd, melancholic and beautiful at the same time – similar to the feeling of reflection upon one’s childhood. The soundtrack, conceived of and executed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, does a splendid job of encapsulating this exotic cocktail of emotions.

To pull it off, O assembled a veritable super-group of indie rockers, appropriately dubbed “The Kids”, which includes her band mates as well as members of The Dead Weather, Folk Implosion, Queens of the Stone Age, Liars, The Raconteurs and Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound).

Though leaning heavily toward folksy art rock, the 40-minute score manages to traverse an impressive sonic range. The largely instrumental pieces cover an assortment of moods and styles: from balmy campfire-sounding sing-alongs to lullaby-soft, music-box melodies. From moments of ecstatic and unadulterated, joyous indulgence to those of poignant, aching sadness.

Barring a few exceptions (most notably, a cover of Daniel Johnston’s Worried Shoes), O seems to prefer using her pipes as an instrument for accent rather than a lead in the conventional sense with fully fleshed-out lyrics. Dialogue from the film has been woven in (to great affect) with her minimal vocals in such a way that it can be difficult to discern O’s presence from that of the Max, the story’s protagonist.

Production is spacious – wide open as the imagination of a child. Behind an often deceptively jam-session feel, are rich arrangements of guitar, strings, piano, and synthesizer as well as a host of other instruments which loosely adorn these compositions.

A great example of this intricate roominess is the Arcade Fire-esque Building All is Love, a reprise of the main theme, which is piled high with stings and guitars. Rumpus is all guitars, sythns and plinging xylophone. An up tempo romp with hand claps, tambourines, shakers and backing children’s vocals that give it an irresistible never-neverland feel. A swung, hand-clapped rhythm and sing-songy vocals make Heads Up the catchiest tune on the album. And then there's Lost Fur, a sublimely simple instrumental piece which centers around a piano part and a few acoustic guitar chords. At barely a minute long, this sorrowful interlude is much more than the sum of its parts.

It’s funny, given what I’ve heard of O’s music, never in a thousand years would I have expected her to make an album like this (although given her history with Jonze I suppose she was a fairly obvious choice). I’m just gonna come right out and say that I’m not really a fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Beside the fact that I’ve always found O’s yowl to be incredibly grating, to me they’re the embodiment of that insular, nauseatingly self-important New York rock scene of the early aughts. So, I guess it feels kinda good in this instance to have my preconceptions rebuked.

http://www.myspace.com/wherethewildthingsare

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Karen-O/20109076662

http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/

Dizzee Rascal - Tongue N Cheek

If you’re at all familiar with Dizzee Rascal, you might be surprised by the kind of company he’s keeping these days.

Club circuit mainstays Calvin Harris, Armand Van Helden and even Holland’s euro-cheese extraordinaire DJ Tiesto all contribute to his latest record which is a kind of hip-hop/rave fusion that has already spawned three #1’s in the UK. His usual standby Cage did make about half the tracks, but even most of these have a decidedly club-y bent.

Initially it may seem a far cry from the moodiness of Boy in da Corner. It's true, he's mellowed slightly into a more comical persona (hence the Cheek), but Diz is still as verbally dexterous as anyone in the UK (hence the Tongue). He’s sort of like a British Weazy in that respect: a pop star that dabbles in silliness but has a street pedigree and the skills to back it up. Listen to the way he attacks his beats lyrically (especially on the Tiesto produced Bad Behavior) - the posturing may have changed, but the attitude is definitely there.

Not one to waste time with subtly, album opener Bonkers (produced by Helden) hits the ground running with little more than a single synth note preceding its full-on house beat. Both of the Calvin Harris produced tracks are anthems – all electro-house bass, arpeggiated leads and big hooks - that manage to be incredibly accessible without sounding paint-by-the-numbers. The infectious Dance Wiv Me is probably my favorite cut on the album. Holiday, which is equally addictive, avoids cheesy cliché even when straying into trance territory with that epic ‘90s-esque breakdown. The breakbeat-driven Road Rage, produced by Aaron Lactate and Samir, takes the club music theme in a tech-ier direction. Full of jittery synths and brooding atmosphere, it’s an adrenaline-soaked, low-end assault a la Baltimore, that's rendered almost ridiculous by it's subject matter - i.e. Dizzee making threats from a Mini Cooper

There are some slower jams too, presumably to keep things interesting. Chillin Wiv a Man Dem is Diz doing his best impersonation of an American rapper circa ’94. Kicking out rhymes about pot smoke and video games over a laid back beat anchored with a funk bass line, R&B synths, acoustic guitars and a sparkly keyboard lick - it’s like a British take on one of those classic summer-time West Coast jams.

And lest anyone accuse him of turning his back on the streets or his Roll Deep past, there’s the Aswad-sampling Can’t Tek No More produced by old-school junglist Shy FX. This bass heavy, syncopated riddim - complete with dubbed out horns, gunshots, and Dizzee waxing political in double-time - has all the skank of East London’s sound-system culture.

If the goal was to cross over without sacraficing quality, Diz pretty much knocked it out of the park with this one. Even if the kind of recognition he's received in Europe has yet to materialize on this side of the Atlantic, it doesn’t take anything away from the viability of Tongue N Cheek as a pop record that crosses barriers. Take note Kanye, this is how to merge street swagger with up-tempo dance beats and not come off like a blatant try-hard.

http://www.dizzeerascal.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/dizzeerascal

Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx Part 2

When I first heard about this, I was pretty skeptical. The name reeked of a crude attempt to cash in on the strength of one hip-hop’s greatest landmarks. RZA was in Hollywood; ODB had cashed his check at that great welfare office in the sky and it seemed like everyone else (except Ghost) had dropped off the face of the earth. It was almost enough to make me believe those (mostly journalists) attempting to conduct a post-mortem of Shaolin’s finest. Happily, I can attest that it simply ain’t so.

The classic Wu style is definitely represented here: a kind ghetto noir woven in gritty detail from threads of street life - murder, family, drug deals, betrayal, etc. No one in Wu, or otherwise, is more adept at this kind of narrative than Raekwon, who’s first Cuban Linx single handedly established the Mafioso Rap genre. He’s a born storyteller who boasts of having “8 million” on Sonny’s Missing: a grim yarn full of gory images about someone murdered for his riches - “…blood on his Adidas was thick ... they broke his neck in like 5 places / pushed him down the rail and he skinned his face.” segues into an informative 54-second rap about cooking up crack called Pyrex.

The production on Part 2 is top notch. If the original was good sashimi – raw, fresh, and unadorned - then this could be thought of as some sort of gourmet specialty roll crafted by artisans as diverse as Marley Marl, Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Eric Sermon and of course the RZA. Full of orchestral strings, horns, organs and guitars (often lifted straight from gangster flicks) as well as the obligitory kung fu samples, it all seems specifically tailored to accommodate the Wu narrative style - sonically matching the cinematic quality of the content.

At 22 tracks, there is amazingly no real filler (it’s telling that everyone I’ve talked to has a different shortlist of favorite songs. Only the RZA produced Black Mozart seems to be haled universally). With all these cooks, it’s a testament to Rae’s vision that the cohesion hasn’t suffered, especially given the plight of 8 Diagrams which suffered from a glut of half-formed ideas and a lack of clear focus.

Lyrically, this is Wu in top form. Ghostface rips it up on about a third of the tracks, his rough staccato providing that lovely counterpoint to Raekwon’s buttery cadence. Cappadonna, Busta Rhymes, Beanie Sigel, Jada Kiss and most of the rest of the clan provide cameos as well.

GZA does his thing on We Will Rob You along with Slick Rick and Masta Killa. Method Man comes through with the hook for rallying call New Wu, a declaritive statement that the Staten Island crew, now nearly two decades in, can still hang lyrically with anyone. Inspectah Deck shows up seemingly out of nowhere to drop the first verse on the album and one of the best on Black Mozart. Ol Dirty gets a proper shout in the form of Ason Jones. It would be easy to overdo something like this, but leave it to Dilla - who employs emotive strings, chopped-up Motown vocals and samples from the fallen MC - to create a heartfelt and convincing tribute.

Despite the high expectations for a project of this magnitude, overall response seems positive. The criticism I have heard ranges from the disillusioned to the delusional (One guy complained that Part 2 lacked sufficient hooks, begging the question: What the hell have you listening to? Because Wu Tang’s MO has always been direct verbal assault – no gimmicks, just rhymes). It’s seems some were expecting this to exceed the original – or somehow revive the ‘90s golden era.

The ‘90s are gone forever, folks. Lacking the novelty factor and the context, there was no way this could have had anything like the impact of its predecessor; still, Part 2’s a quality hip hop record (among the best of ‘09) worthy of its illustrious namesake.

http://www.wutang-corp.com/artists/wu-artist

http://www.myspace.com/raekwon

The Gaslamp Killer - My Troubled Mind

This EP was released on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder imprint a few months back. Now, if you’re not from Southern Cali, you may not be familiar with the GLK. That is probably going to change though, as he’s one of the most best DJ’s around right now - in any genre.

His self-released DJ mixes are fantastic! Who else can cram Can, Bullion Rusko, Dilla, Black Mountain and Dungen and 30-some odd other joints into the same set with surgically precise programming and blending? (that’s really a rhetorical question)

This seven-track EP’s a paltry 15 minutes, but it's practically busting at the seems with various and sundry influences. Experimental 60s/70s rock, prog, jazz, funk , African and world music are all mashed together into something that flows like a miniature dj mix; each track segueing into the next.

Anything Worse is like a cross between a DJ tool and a haunted house sound track. It starts out with a mid-tempo skeletal drum break before some synthesized atmospheric paranoia starts in. The beat gets all glitchy, speeds up for a couple of bars, then slows back down adding a disembodied funk horn and ends with Theramin and some 8-bit chip synths. Turk Mex starts out like pan-Asian world music crossed with hip-hop and ends up like some kind of psychedelic 70s blues.

Baiafro’s like a video game, an African drum circle and an acid trip all mixed up together. After a jazz sax sample it busts into a wicked b-boy style break which alternates with tribal tablas, before ending in a swirl of Floydian atmosphere. And the closer Birthday Song ? A fittingly weird conclusion to this jumble of ideas. It's essentially a Capella music wrapped in some dark synthesizer ambiance with a repeating sample of a guy saying “My troubled mind”

For some reason, it took me a couple of listens to fully grasp the dopeness. I don’t know what I was expecting this to sound like, but it caught me off guard. Given GLK’s esoteric approach to DJing, though, this EP makes perfect sense.

http://www.thegaslampkiller.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thegaslampkiller

http://www.brainfeedersite.com/



If you didn't get the message yet, check out this dude's DJ mixes. Here's a short one he did for BBC [.mp3] It's his official mixes that really kill it though!

For starters, I recommend:

Hell & The Lake of FIre Are Waiting For You

Passion Pit - Manners

[I wrote this earlier this summer, but neglected to post it for some reason]


This album is a good measure of just how far my taste in music has spread. Back when, I would have swiftly dismissed this as awful on the strength of the vocals alone. Thankfully my tastes have changed since, because Manners has been the soundtrack of choice for my morning workout. (There’s nothing like running through the foggy morning streets of SF ready to collapse but pushing yourself on to the sounds of a choir full of kids chanting “higher and higher and higher.”)

What was originally a vehicle for Michael Angelakos to write songs as a Valentines gift for his girlfriend, blew the fuck up over the last year and is now a full on band signed to a major label.

Passion Pit’s sound is exuberant, care free, unabashedly cheesy and addictive, like all good pure pop music. Anchored by propulsive dance beats and Angelakos’ shrill falsetto vocals, the songs are overflowing with saccharine melodies; sing-songy call and response hooks and glutinous amounts of 80’s style keyboards (their live show purportedly employs no less than eight!). In short, it’s is an orgy of neon mechanized glee. Imagine MGMT doing a straight synthpop album and ratcheting all the vocals up an octave and you get a general idea.

This silly catchiness, however, belies some pretty sophisticated compositions. The drums they record live and then chop in a DAW, layering in cowbells and plenty of those 80’s style tom rolls. Then come the keyboards. Layer upon layer upon layer of synthesizers- fluttering, twinkling, gurgling, pulsing, arpeggiating. Stings, horns, key, guitars, bass - pretty much any kind of synthesizer patch you could think of. And finally comes Angelakos’ distinctly unrestrained pipes.

There’s not a lot variety, save for some tempo changing, but when you do something well…

My favorite songs are the propulsively infectious Little Secret featuring the aforementioned call and response refrain from a children's choir and The Reeling, a glistening monument of unadulterated pop bliss. Sleepy Heads is included here as well. Originally released earlier as part of the 2008 Chunk of Change EP , it was this youtube video that started all the fuss. And while I was initially was non-plussed, I have to admit, the pitched vocal sample and wail-y singing have definitely grown on me.

Got to hand it to these guys, this is pretty damn near flawless execution. Perfect mindless summertime listening.

http://www.passionpitmusic.com/

http://www.myspace.com/passionpitjams

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

You’ve got to be doing something right if you’ve been around as long as The Flaming Lips and are still in any way relevant.

Wayne Coyne and company maintain their seemingly eternal vitality by re-imagining themselves before things can get stale. And, having mastered the art of skewed psychedelic pop balladry over the last decade, the time for such a reinvention was apparently at hand.

From the ragged feedback and rigid backbeat of opening salvo, Convinced of the Hex, it’s clear that we’re in for a different experience. This brash rough-hewn production is a complete departure from The Lips’ last three outings. The sonic palette has been stripped back to essential components – serrated guitars; lo-fi synthesized melodies; pulsating bass; distortion-blunted drums and Coyne’s wistful idiosyncratic croon.

Embryonic is a strange hybrid of electronic noise and alien rock sprawled out over two discs worth of experimentation. Long instrumental bridges blur into surreal atmospheric pieces and are punctuated abruptly by chaotic outbursts of noise. All-the-while, Coyne’s heavily processed vocals float over top hauntingly disembodied, like a relic from long ago or a hologram.

The debt to early Floyd, is stamped all over, but is especially clear on the Ummagumma-like See the Leaves with it’s cryptic lyrics; throbbing bass line; scatter shot drums and long end trail of creepy morose synthesizer.

The influence of '70s German bands like Can and Neu! is another key ingredient. Whether it’s the distortion-laden behemoth Worm Mountain, the hypnotic, mostly instrumental Powerless which stretches out to nearly seven minutes, or album closer Watching the Planets, this kraut influence is unmistakable.

Distortion is such a prominent feature this time around, it could be credited on the liner notes. It’s the primordial substance from which this dis-jointed auditory opus is wrought.

Even when they do the ballad thing, like on Evil or If, the results are frayed and messy (in the best way possible). There's a graininess and a kind of smudged ambiance that gives the whole thing an out-of-focus quality. Or conversely, in the case of The Impulse , you get the only “clean” cut on the album, but it's all vocoded which makes it sound radically out of place and just fucked up.

The album's flow is erratic, as is captured perfectly in the transition from the somber Evil to Aquarius Sabotage which noisily lashes in out in all directions with spastic drumming, squalls of feedback and synthesizer chimes before it dissolves back to ambiance. But, these contrasts of rhythmic to ambient; meditative to jarring; are what make this record so satisfying to me - they build tension and then release the pent-up anxiety in cathartic sonic blasts.

As much as I loved The ‘Lips sound of the early aughts, I don’t think they could have done anything better in that vein than Yoshimi, so I’m really grateful that they’ve taken things in this different direction. In the process they've come up with what might be my favorite record this year.

http://www.flaminglips.com/embryonic/

http://www.myspace.com/flaminglips

Oh, and I got to put in a plug for Silver Trembling Hands, just because I think it’s one of the best things they’ve ever written… I leave it to you to find out why though.

Why? - Eskimo Snow

After co-founding Anticon, an Oakland-based label/collective considered “out-there” even by abstract hip-hop standards, Yoni Wolf (aka Why?) decided a few years back that he’d have a go at playing in a band. So the MC formed and now fronts a 3-piece retaining the Why? moniker.

Last year’s Alopcia, the second release as a band, was a brilliant combination of whacked-out hip hop and indie rock. These 10 songs were culled from the same batch of recordings as Alopecia, but lest you think that translates into a hastily thrown together project consisting of left over scraps, let me assure you, this is a hell of record. It’s genius might not be apparent instantly like it’s predecessor, but it’s a grower – a record that merits repeat listening.

Wolf continues his foray into uncharted territory, giving us an LP’s worth of folksy art-rock with nary a drum loop in sight. Sonically, Eskimo Snow feels blithe, casual and unrestrained. This is no doubt partially due to the decision to go with live drumming , but that’s not the whole story. With such a profusion of delicate-soft instrumentation - jingling pianos, sliding guitars, etc. - the whole approach seems more free form. Wolf, himself described it as “more wild”, noting the increased use of room mic’s on the drums. The grooves may be looser, but these are fully fleshed out songs, especially lyrically speaking.

Wolf’s greatest strength as a lyricist (in my opinion) has always been the seemingly bottomless well of bizarre imagery he is cabable of conjuring. When coupled with a sharp wit and the ability to deftly juxtapose cumbersome phrasing in an organic, stream-of-conscious manner, Wolf’s persona becomes anomalous. Though he’s completely eshewed the rhyming in favor of singing, it doesn’t compromise one bit the aesthetic weirdness that characterized him as an MC. On January Twenty Something he sings “If you called, and i didn't answer , / there's a chance I'll get back to you / but if you're bald, fat, and go where my pants were, / then you know I'm breeding for two”

Overall, the lyrical content of this album is pretty neurotic. Shot through with mortality and sex, it leans hard toward the morbidly introspective. And though he’s well known for self-deprecating, Wolf seems to drop any pretension or snarkiness, displaying instead, a more personal side of himself. It’s a good look. Even as he declares, “I conquered my own childhood silence / and now the world is my lit confessional marquee” on Into the Shadows of My Embrace there’s an earnest vulnerability that is truly endearing. The chorus of Against Me for instance is, “Oh am I too concerned with the burn of scrutiny? / Cold chased on run and covered like a horse before the race / Will I gain weight in later life? / And when will someone swing a scythe against me?”

The album finishes very strongly with a triage of what can only be called ballads. Berkeley by Herseback, The Blackest Purse and Eskimo Snow are gorgeous songs period. Wolf demonstrates that he’s plenty capable of following up a great record with out having to resort to more of the same.

http://www.myspace.com/whyanticon

http://anticon.com

Bullion - Young Heartbreak EP

Like his One-handed Music label mate Paul White, Bullion’s blissed-out forays into sound are hip-hop only in the loosest sense of the word.

Using nothing but the finest raw ingredients - vintage funk, soul, garage rock and psychedelia - Bullion sets the dial of his sonic Cuisinart to frappe and produces deliciously thick concoctions of woozy psy-pop.

This EP is essentially four A-side tracks packaged together.

The title track begins with a ticking clock and a snippet from some forgotten garage rock song. I love the way he warps the vocal after bringing in the drums and bass in. It creates an off-balance groove wrapped in a dissociative fog of nostalgia - like listening to The Byrds on a head full of cough syrup. (Just what you might expect from a guy who’s idea of a mixtape is mashing up J Dilla with The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Songs in the Key of Dee. [download it here])

Are You the One is a gorgeous slow jam that rides a simple but very distinctive marching beat with an old-timey pop vocal soaked in reverb. The combination of the rhythm, an over sized bass line and the translucent quality of the vocal is like dub filtered through a particularly pleasant day-dream.

The other two tracks, Time for Us All to Love and Long Promised follow in the same vein of dazed garage-hop - proggy keys, fuzzy bass, sliced up vocals exhumed from who knows where and drums that are more than a little tipsy.

Listening to this is like smoking crack - it's over in less than 15 minutes and afterward, I’d do anything just to get another hit damnit! Please, give me another hit Bullion. I’ll... well I’m not gonna go there.

http://www.myspace.com/bullionness

http://www.myspace.com/onehanded

Zomby - One Foot In Front of the Other

It seems like a lot folks are rejecting Zomby's
latest offering. Maybe it was out of disappointment that he didn’t follow the trajectory they had in mind.

Not that he cares I’m sure, as this is a guy who seems to do as he pleases. A guy who blew up the spot last year with his self-titled EP on Hyperdub -- establishing insta-Dubstep-street-cred (and a formidable critical hype-machine) -- only to turn around and throw everybody for a loop by releasing an albums worth of raved-up, oldschool, breakbeat ‘ardcore (what!?). And, a guy that basically called out Simon Reynolds as incompetent .

Zomby’s a bit of an eccentric. A known parrot connoisseur. And an a-list beat maker whose true identity remains unknown (he refuses to reveal his face or divulge his name).

So, on to the music.

If your ColecoVision managed to achieve self awareness through some freak electrical storm and then eloped with a drum machine, scored some drugs and proceeded to hit the town for some clubbing, this would be the soundtrack. It seems ol' Zomby's gone off on a UK Garage tangent here; seven of the nine cuts are 140(ish)-BPM. The stiff drum programming gives the brittle grooves a slight jerkyness. The gawky rhythms are punctuated by manifold fractal bursts of bright digital melody that shift up and down in octave as well as in and out of time creating a slightly disorienting, though thoroughly satisfying WTF-effect.

When he hits the mark, as he does with the title track and FireFly Finale, the syncopated beats slink more than jerk. The propulsive rhythmic gyrations forming a hypnotic juxtaposition of lo-fi-meets-futurism and creating neat parallel to modern Dancehall (and thus acheiving a more Jamaica-centric than authenticity than almost anyone this side of the Caribbean) in the process.

The non-Garage-y “half-time” tracks are excellent as well. Godzilla is a stuttering slice of chip-hop drenched in a shower of twinkling pixels that shift in time -- changing from 16^th to 24^th notes and back. Helter Skelter, with less bleeps and more low end, stands out noticeably from the rest of the lot. Its oscillating haunted-house bass line, old-school jungle pads and general weirdness sound closer to his earlier Hyperdub stuff.

This release is certainly not as ambitious as the Zomby EP. I reckon you could even call it homogeneous (as some have), but when you’re good at something, you’re good at something. And I gotta give it up to Zomby, he still does the bleepy 8-bit grime thing (I refuse to use the word “wonky”) better than anyone.

http://www.myspace.com/zombyproductions

http://www.hyperdub.com/

The Grouch and Eligh - Say G&E

This has been burning up my ipod all summer-- providing a perfect soundtrack to nice to days in the park, at the beach, at cook-outs, pretty much everywhere in the city as well as two trips back east.

As any fan of underground hip hop worth their salt could tell you, these two Cali vets have been putting it down as individuals and collectively with the rest of The Living Legends crew for well over a decade. I consider myself a fairly well-versed Legends fan, and I gotta say, it doesn’t get any better than this. Their third collab and the follow-up to 2003’s No More Greener Grasses is damn near flawless.

It’s one of the best hip hop records to drop in ‘09, but, even more than that, it’s the type that’ll be designated a classic in ten years. On the surface it’s a great party record drenched in the kind of laid back summer vibes that would be accessible even to those not inclined to listen to hip hop.

The beats, which are fuckin’ slammin’, are mostly Eligh’s; though Flying Lotus, DJ Fresh and Amplive contribute as well. The shear quality and variety of styles on display is impressive. Eligh has always been the best Legends producer in my opinion, but he’s clearly taken his game to the another level since Greener Grasses. Look no further than Comin’ Up featuring Mr F.A.B., where he flips a Band of Horses sample into one of the dopest tracks on the album, if you need proof.

Upon repeat listens, Say G&E is an expansive album with remarkable depth and heavyweight subject matter . The Legends, and especially Grouch, have always exemplified “conscious” hip hop to me and this is no exception. The message(s) transcend tired stereotypes about politics and ignorance. These themes are covered (and expertly) on Rivers Run Dry and Worried About the World feat. Sage Francis and Mike Marshal, but they’re really just footnotes. This album apparently seeks to snap-shot no less than the richness of the human experience.

This would be impossibly pretentious if attempted by almost any other rappers, but Grouch and Eligh are masters at grounding their verses in the reality of actual experience (as opposed to phony posturing) which produces endearingly genuine results.

The title track, which rides an ill Flaming Lips sample with Grouch rapping about his humble Fruitvale beginnings, is a homage to the determination it takes to make it as an “underground MC”-- working shit jobs and hustling beats to make ends. Eligh ups the realness factor even more. Anybody who knows anything about the misery of addiction will relate to his lyrics. On the Rick Rock produced Living In Denial, Eligh, waxes first person about being locked in a seemingly irreversible collision course with oblivion. Grouch plays the part of a close friend-- confused, hurt and powerless (which is probably not far from the way it actually went down). This is real existential, dark-knight-of-the-soul shit here. The addiction theme is expanded in several other tracks (I Know You Wanna Feel and Teach Me the Way, All In) each one documenting another stage in the process of redemption.

The overall sensation for me that emerges from this record is one of overwhelming reverence for the sanctity of existence. As Grouch raps on Push On (Push Up) “I really wanna loop the feeling/Repeat it for the world to see”

http://www.therealgrouch.com/v2/

http://www.legendarymusic.net/

http://www.myspace.com/livinglegends

The Mars Volta - Octahedron

This is another record I had to listen to several times to form a definite opinion of. It was panned from every angle before I even got a chance to listen to it, but we’re talking The Mars Volta, so what else is new. Having now listened, I can say that it will most likely due little to curry them favor with their detractors, many of whom will apparently never forgive them for ending the beloved At The Drive-In. I for one think it’s a solid record, though admittedly, I’m an avowed TMV fan.

After four albums of balls-out, psychedelic insanity, the guys have taken a sharp turn and landed in the land of swank, crushed-purple-velvet, prog rock. Latin percussive and freeform aspects have been largely abandoned in favor of a more straight forward approach. (If you need to fix with some of that familiar Volta mania, you’d do better grabbing Groupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriquez-Lopez’s new Cryptomnesia who’s spasmodic sonic outbursts are almost Turrets-like in their precipitous intensity.)

This is not technically a concept piece, at least in the sense that Bedlam was, there is none-the-less, a consistent thread that permeates this narrative however obscured by cryptic lyrical imagery it may be. Omar has said that “the main theme on this record is of disappearance: kidnappings and unexplainable things of that nature”

Essentially a collection of Televators style ballads; about half of the album doesn’t even have drums. That’s not to say that there aren’t any vintage TMV moments- in Cotopaxi, which is as close to up tempo as this record gets, Cedric’s howl whirls around a twisted rhythm in odd time and in album closer Luciforms, we find the familiar sound of Omar’s crazed soloing even if it is over a song that sounds sapped of it's vigor by Volta standards- just that, generally speaking, they’ve cranked back the freak-out knob by at least a good 30 percent.

Although less frenetic, Octahedron is every bit as ostentatious and chock full o’ the kind of excess that will surely cause steam to issue from the ears of haters. Album opener Since We’ve Been Wrong, for example, kicks off with a full two minutes of one note synthesizer sustain. And from there, it only gets more decadent. The TMV MO is in full effect- that is to say these songs are fantastically opulent, unabashedly self-indulgent and more than a little unstable. In short- utterly over the top. However, Teflon with its chugging, fractured groove and creepy distorted atmospherics is as good as anything the guys have written in my opinion. I would say the same thing of Desperate Games as well as the glitch-meets-dark-folk of Copernicus.

So this is basically the sound of The Mars Volta doing what The Mars Volta does- i.e. whatever they feel like at the time. They’ve always taken heat for making the records they want to make as opposed to those that the fans/critics/etc. want or expect them to. Octahedron, which forms somewhat of a middle ground between the warped interludes of ambient noise and the full-on assaults of garish bombast, is just the latest example of this.

http://themarsvolta.com/

http://www.myspace.com/themarsvolta