Monday, August 24, 2009

Clipse



Clipse, for those who don't know, are brothers Pusha T and Malice, two Virginian ex-crack dealers who hooked up with the Neptunes in 2001 and have cranked out a pretty impressive body of work since. Fully utilizing Pharell's clout in the record business, the group has made two modern classics in hip hop- 2002's Lord Willin' and 2006's Hell Hath No Fury. Both have the two MC's waxing existential about the drug pushing lifestyle- the good and the bad. The dark subject matter of their lyrics are matched by the production which is really top notch. It's easy to forget just how good the Neptunes can be when they have quality stuff to work with, but Hell Hath No Fury is as convincing an argument as they've made. The beats bump but are sparse and have an almost industrial feel, that match the cold reality of the lyrics. That said, this shit is danceable and is meant to be cranked on a good system.


As much as haters will point to their subject matter being repetitive and glorifying of the lifestyle, the duo really are more about the pusher lifestyle as background and context to the situations their put in, much like Biggie did. Their lyrics are often riddled with guilt, pathos and a feeling of being trapped like on "We Got It For Cheap":

"The walls removed and now I see,
My leg was pulled the jokes on me,
So heartbreakin' like lovin' a whore
Might hurt you once but never no more
Like tryin' to fly but they clippin your wings
and that's exactly why the caged bird sings"

They're readying a new album, due later this year that has Def Jam founder Rick Rubin at the helm. The first single, "All Eyes On Me" is dope and hopefully is an indication of how good the rest of the album is going to be.

MP3- All Eyes On Me (Left Click to download)

MP3- Trill (Left Click to Download)

MP3- Wamp Wamp

 MP3- Keys Open Doors
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Blur: Midlife



Blur is one of those bands that largely passed me by in their heyday. "Song 2" was rediculously awesome when I was a kid and I loved singer Damon Albarn's other project, the Gorillaz, but Blur was a little too mature for me when I got Parklife, their supposed best album. I just kinda of discarded it, and didnt think about the band much after. Big mistake. This compilation has shown me I'm an idiot and missed out on something I would have been obsessed with on the level of Radiohead, their mid-90's Brit-pop rivals. "Coffee and TV" is one of the best songs I've ever heard, and has revealed the side of them I hadn't seen- the rhythmic chord strummin' beast of a band that writes brilliant, wry pop songs the way the Kinks did.

I've found a slew of songs I love on this collection, and am now legitamately into their albums. Parklife has kinda of turned around for me in the context of their career, but it's not their best. I like their fat, three or four chord droning rockers the best like the aforementioned "Coffee and TV," "Pop Scene" and "Bugman" and most of the songs on this collection. Shit's rad. Re-issue of the year for sure. Enjoy.





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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Dan Deacon- "Padding Ghost" video




Dan Deacon's video for my favorite song off this year's Bromst, "Padding Ghost," is RAD. Props to it's creator Natalie Van Den Dungen! Note to other prospective film-makers: puppets are underutilized.


Other Deacon choice nuggz:




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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Wire- Pink Flag



Lemme tell ya a little story about Wire. What began as an art school final project, became one of the lasting legacies of post-punk and birthed one of the greatest albums of all time, 1977's Pink Flag. Wire came out of the post punk movement in Britain that spawned Joy Division, Gang of Four, The Fall, Siouxie Sioux and others, but Wire was it's own beast. Their fractured songs tore up rock cliches and started anew, embracing a more minimalist sound from the epic jerk off sessions of late 70' classic rock, and did away with all the posture and fashion of punk rock. The result- a sound and style all their own. Sparse, rhythmic and full of fleeting ideas, Wire were radical for their time, but history has smiled on them, and their records sound better now than ever. Pink Flag is the best, but 1978's Chairs Missing and 1979's 154 are champs as well. Seriously some of my favorite music ever and a serious diamond in the rough. Some of my favorite lyrics ever: 
"Time is too short, 
but never too long,
To reach ahead, 
to project the image,
Which will in time,
become a concrete dream.
Another cigarette,
another day,
From A to B,
again avoiding C,D, and E,
'cause E is where you play the blues,
Drowning in the big swell,
rising to the surface,
the smell of you,
that's the lowdown"
(From "Lowdown")




MP3- Ex-Lion Tamer



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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Flying Lotus- The Blackfist Mix


Sometimes a mix comes along, and it's the mix that summarizes the time and place surrounding the creator. Sometimes a mix comes around that completely transcends that time and place and terraforms the minds of those exposed to it. Sometimes there's a mix...sometimes...huh...lost my train of thought. Suffice it to say, this is the dopest dope, one of the best mixes I've ever heard by a wide margin. Very glad to share it with you. Flying Lotus is the fucking man, plain and simple. A mix of hip hop, jazz, reggae, electro, and dubstep that will warp your brain forever for the better.

(Left-Click the link and follow instructions)

More of the Warp Records wunderkind/grandson of Alice Coltrane for yr aural pleasure:

(Right Click to Download, Left Click to play)




P.S. No I don't have a tracklist for the mix. If anyone finds it, post it as a comment. Kthxbye
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Yeasayer

With all the good bands hailing from Brooklyn, Yeasayer have been pretty overlooked and underrated since their debut in 2007 with their LP All Hours Cymbals, but I've come back to them a lot more than bands that critics have pushed on me in the time since. They've steadily gained my respect and other followers the old fashioned way: by writing good songs and outperforming the over-hyped bands they've played with (MGMT, namely). Their psychedelic sound takes as much from world music as it does from traditional rock/reggae/R&B/etc, and their album benefits greatly from the dynamic, never stagnating. They have chanting melodies, polyrhythmic drumming and and overall tribal feel, and they can bust out on a wide variety of instruments. Their lyrics are well sung and well written as well:

"It's a fresh spring, so let's sing
And the moon shines bright on the water tonight
So we won't drown in the summer sound
Yeah, yeah, we can all grab at the chance to be handsome farmers
Yeah you can have twenty-one sons and be blood when they marry my daughters"
( From "2080")

So check out All Hours Cymbals, see them live, and cop their new album when it comes out.


MP3- Sunrise

MP3- 2080

MP3- Tightrope

MP3- Wait For The Summer

MP3- Forgiveness

MP3- Wait For The Wintertime

MP3- No Need To Worry

MP3- Simian Mobile Disco w/Yeasayer: The Audacity Of Huge

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Monday, August 17, 2009

Department Of Eagles- The Cold Nose



Somewhere amidst my non-homo love affair with Grizzly Bear, I found out that their guitarist Daniel Rossen has a side project called the Department of Eagles. I got their more recent album, 2008's In Ear Park, first and it's pretty rad. It's sounds like Grizzly Bear because it's basically Grizzly Bear without Ed Droste which is still a very good thing. 

Yet 2003's The Cold Nose LP is my focus here, because it's just so goddamn creative and awesome. Though it probably wont reach that many ears on it's own merits because it's a bit inaccessible and is now a few years old, it's a goldmine for the open-minded listener. Danny and bandmate Fred Nicolaus met as assigned roommates at NYU and started fucking around with samples and recording guitars and vocals. The result, The Cold Nose (originally called The Whitey on the Moon LP), is a diverse collection of hip hop beats, string section swells, and Radiohead-esque rock songs, all arranged in a trippy, psychedelic way. 

Highlights of the album are "Romo Goth" a unique rollicker, the trip hoppy "Gravity's Greatest Victory/Rex Snorted Coke," and the cluserfuck pieces "The Origin of Love" and "The Curious Butterfly Realizes He's Beautiful." The quality of the rest of the album is just as good as those highlights, but those are the one's that caught my ear first. The whole thing is a meandering stoner treat that was pretty much just meant to please them and their friends so don't blame it for seeming a little insular. I'm sure if you give it a little time, you'll dig it a lot. 



Video For "Romo Goth"


And, not to undermine the greatness of In Ear Park, here are some samples of that, too. It's really great but it speaks for itself, whereas the Cold Nose requires a little explaining. 








Video For "No One Does It Like You"

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ZOMBY



Zomby is dubstep's mystery man in that his/her/it's identity is kept a secret. "Helter Skelter" sounds like a dancable solution to the electronic soundtracks to old Italian horror films or an easy upgrade from John Carpenter's electronic muzak from his 80's films. The video mashes the song up with George Romero's films and the Italian B-horror classic, "Zomby 2" as well as a melodramatic makeout scene and more. All good stuff. 



For more Zomby, check out his 2008 debut Where Were You In '92?.

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Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Waning Days Of Summer


Rather than wax wistfully about how great summer was/is-for-a-few-more-days, I'd rather let others speak for me. So, here are some ripping summer songs to to wet yr. whistle before the autumn void of dark skies and dead leaves makes you break out your "Wristcutter Jams '08" mixtape. 












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Thursday, August 13, 2009

2009: The Year So Far


MUSICALLY speaking, it's been quite a good year. There's been some very kickass albums that I haven't gotten to take a look at on here so I might as well round them up. I've given much love to Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, MF Doom, Jay Reatard, Wavves, Andrew Bird, Black Lips, etc but here are some bands I have, for whatever reason, omitted. So many apologies...

1. The Dirty Projector's Bitte Orca: Bringing to mind the Talking Heads is a good thing with me. Being endorsed by David Byrne, personally, is even better. Doing a reinterpretation of Black Flag's Damaged on last year's Rise Above sealed the deal- this band is pretty rad. Mastermind David Longstreth is apparently bursting with ideas, as every song on Bitte Orca seems to jump out of the speakers and shift gears on a dime, from lush jangly strumming to crashing cacophony. It's potent and may not all register the first time, but give it a few spins and you'll see something of genius is at work here. A grower.




2. Dan Deacon's Bromst: Another album bursting at it's non-literal seams with energy and ideas. Dan Deacon cooks up a good sophomore stew to 2007's Spiderman of the Rings. Though Bromst has it's atonal overload moments ("Red F"), it still has "Padding Ghost," Snookered" and the better portion of the album, basically. His songwriting and drum production has improved drastically and I'd imagine most of these songs would kick ass live (with a good crowd). 




3. St. Vincent's Actor: An album of amazing lyrical depth which also bring some heat and rocks out from time to time. A former Sufjan Stevens collaborator, Anne Clark establishes her own aesthetic and I like it a lot more than some of her contemporaries like Regina Spector and Fiona Apple, because it has teeth and she has chops, being also a former member of Glenn Branca's 100 Guitar Orchestra. The songs "Actor Out Of Work" and "Laughing With A Mouth of Blood" will definitely be on a lot of year ends lists so here they are. 




4. Birdy Nam Nam's Manual For Successful Rioting: This shit is bananas, just makes me go nuts like listening to Justice in 2007. It's in the same vein as Justice and Mr. Oizo- hard, fast distorted club bangers (and they're all from France). Dance punk if you will. Plus they do all of their instrumentation live, plus they're really hard, did I mention that?




5. Mos Def's The Ecstatic: Mos Def finally get back to his Black Star/Black On Both Sides form and that's a good thing for everyone. The Ecstatic seems a bit tossed off, but that's just what's endearing about it- everything sounds inspired, as if he's following his instincts instead of over-thinking like his last couple solo outings. He gains a lot from embracing Indian and Middle Eastern music via Madlib and Oh No and discussing the war like on "The Embassy" and Slick Rick's (dope) verse on "Auditorium." Mos Def sounds focused on making music and let's hope we can get a few more good albums out of him before his acting career takes over. 




Honorable Mentions: Bibio's Ambivalence Avenue, Nosaj Thing's Drift, Dead Weather's Horehound, Dinosaur Jr's Farm, Yeah Yeah Yeah's It's Blitz!, Woods' Songs of Shame, Dan Auerbach's Keep It Hid, The Decemberists'  The Hazards Of Love, Blank Dogs' Under And Under, etc.
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J Dilla- Jay Stay Paid Mix


Jay Stay Paid is the best posthumous release ever, and I say that without fear of hyperbole. J Dilla is a national treasure to hip hop heads now, but he will go down in history as one of the greats, mainstream, underground, whatever. His leftovers are often better than his albums (besides Donuts) and in this case, fellow great Pete Rock puts together a full fledged album out of his scraps. The result is the best hip hop album so far this year. The best beats of the bunch have that quality that only Dilla can conjure: they're so good it almost makes you tear up, you miss him so much, even if you weren't a fan during his life. "Mythsysizer" is case in point, it's just beautiful and fleeting. "On Stilts," also known as "Smurfs on Shrooms" on other compilations, is more bumping yet has an ethereal quality that transcends hip hop. The whole thing is worth BUYING because the proceeds go to his mom, Ma Dukes, who's suffereing from the same type of lupus that took Dilla from us. It's worth it.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Fall



What's to say about the Fall? Mark E. Smith and crew have been going strong since 1977, without a break. No matter the line up, the Fall is about one thing: Smith's hyper-literate, cryptic lyrics which are sung/rapped through a Clockwork Orange-y British accent. What began in 1977 as more of a poetry reading and a punk band double booked at the same pub, became a phenomenon when the music got to like minds, such as influential British Radio DJ John Peel, who frequently took the opportunity to cite the Fall as his favorite band. LCD Soundsystem rips the Fall off gleefully as do Pavement. Enough dicksucking for one blog post, just listen to them and make sure you don't look up a recent picture of Mark E. Smith (ughhh- don't take speed!). Enjoy.

(Right Click and choose "Save as" or "Download Linked File" to download)










P.S. Good starting off points are the greatest hits collection 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats, and then move on to their classics Hex Enduction Hour and This Nation's Saving Grace.
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Monday, August 10, 2009

Jay Reatard- Watch Me Fall LP


The premise of a new batch of Memphis' Jay Reatard's songs is like Christmas morning for that crazy N64 kid for me. Fortunately, Jay's a prolific lil guy, churning out albums or singles collections at least once a year since the early 2000's. The Memphis product's proficiency at melodies and tunes is equal to his vitriolic punk guitar attack, resulting in a style similar to the early pop punk pioneers such as the Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, Descendants, The Ramones, The Damned, etc. 

On his newest, Watch Me Fall, Jay and his band bring the heat as usual, yet temper it with great pop instincts and a good ear for melody. He juxtaposes his hurt lyrics with sunshine and bubblegum on "I'm Watching You," and the single "Wounded," while "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" and "Hang Them All" are more straightforward, propulsive rockers with anthemic choruses. The song that makes this album a considerable step forward to Jay is "There Is No Sun," which may as well have been produced by Phil Specter with it's beautiful wall of fuzzy sound and harmonic buildup and chamber of echo. That's the difference with this album, he now has songs that can rock stadiums as well as dingy clubs, so he has a ways to go before he peaks and thank god, the radio needs him. 



Classic Reatard: 









Check out Jay's other full length, 2006's Blood Visions (aka the best punk album to come out since the early 80's) and his singles collections. 
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