- Matthew Herbert, One Pig: Whenever I listen to this–and I listen to it way too much–this scene from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s In A Year With 13 Moons comes to mind. Casual world-goes-on brutality rubbing up against something humane and fragile. Review here.
- Justice, Audio, Video, Disco: They made a prog album, and thats quite different from making the idea of a prog album. In a few years, this will be some misunderstood classic. RIYL: Album cuts from Camel, 10cc, and Kansas. I call this “The Snow Goose 2011“.
- Patrick Stump, Soul Punk: Apparently the new Coldplay record is their bold “pop” record, but like, fuck that. There’s not even something like “Moves like Jagger” on there. The dude from F.O.B. made the year’s sophisticated, unabashed pop album. Twice!!!!
- Real Estate, Days: Aggressively pleasant, which is quite different from being just plain dickless. Matt Mondanile converts simple guitar strum combos into stalwart, jangly classics. At least it feels that way when “Green Aisles” or “All The Same” cruise by.
- DJ Drama, Third Power: An uneven, all over the place but ultimately awesome compilation. That Gucci track! Gangsta Gibbs and Jeezy. Good sequencing can trick you into enjoying B.o.B and Crooked I even. Still not enough yelling though.
Archive for October, 2011
October Picks.
Spin: DJ Drama, The Art of Yelling on a Mixtape
My column’s back after a short break that happened for reasons that I’ll explain in a little while. So yeah, this one’s based on a pretty awesome conversation I had with DJ Drama about the aesthetics of mixtape hosting and his new album, Third Power.
DJ Drama, boisterous on record but relaxed, almost samurai-like over the phone, intones his rules for mixtape hosting: “I only talk at the beginning of the song…I never talk on top of the rapping…I give it a concept…” This shit should be obvious, his calm seems to connote.
But it isn’t. Just listen to others like DJ Holiday, who puts together great Gucci Mane tapes despite his total disinterest in mastering, OCD rewinding of totally whatever verses, and a whiny, grating “hooollliiddddaaayyyy ssssseeeeeeeasssonnnnnnnn” drop. Then there’s DJ Khaled, who can’t even scream like he actually cares all that much and endlessly mines a posse-cut formula that rotates a small clump of rappers to diminishing returns. Even “I’m on One,” as near to a perfect a rap song as we’re going to get this year, is almost derailed by a grunting appearance from Khaled’s omnipresent buddy Rick Ross.
MIX: Snooptunes.
Based on last week’s Tumblr Ask discussion about Snoop’s non-Doggystyle input and my affinity for R & G (and really, all of his collaborations with the Neptunes), and because one person asked for it, here’s a mix of most of the Neptunes and Snoop’s official work together. I left off “Special” from Malice n’ Wonderland and the track from the Game’s Purp & Patron and probably a few others like that awesome Tyga track so that I could round it out to a nice hour of listening. Enjoy.
- “It Blows My Mind” (off The Neptunes Present…Clones)
- “Let’s Get Blown” (off R & G)
- “Say Somethin” (off Mariah Carey’s Emancipation Of Mimi)
- “Signs” (off R & G)
- “Beautiful” (off Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Boss)
- “Sets Up” (off Ego Trippin)
- “Vato” (off Tha Blue Carpet Treatment)
- “Pass It Pass It” (off R & G)
- “Don’t Stop” (off Beanie Sigel’s The B.Coming)
- “Drop It Like It’s Hot” (off R & G)
- “10 Lil Crips” (off Tha Blue Carpet Treatment)
- “From Tha Chuuuuch To Da Palace” (off Paid Tha Cost To Be Tha Boss )
- “That Girl” (off Pharrell’s In My Mind)
- “Perfect” (off R & G)
Independent Weekly: The Hot At Nights – Nice Talk
Review of this Raleigh (ostensibly) jazz trio’s debut record. The group’s fronted by Chris Boerner who plays guitar for the Foreign Exchange. There are covers of Joe Jackson and Radiohead and it takes some really weird chances. If you enjoy any relatively straight-forward, contemporary jazz, check it out.
The Hot At Nights are fronted by guitarist Chris Boerner, also of The Foreign Exchange, The Proclivities and a host of other local projects. Like Phonte’s casually experimental soul group, there’s a strange menace underneath this Raleigh trio’s lithe, sophisticated approach to a stalwart genre past its “cool” expiration date, if it ever had one. The Hot At Nights’ template is straight, clinical jazz, down to the sometimes silly song titles (“CisforKaddafi”) and minimalist artwork. Importantly, they also screw around with the style however they see fit, keeping it compelling while moving toward a sound that doesn’t exactly have a genre. It definitely doesn’t fall into the fusion trap, either…
Pitchfork: Matthew Herbert – One Pig
The last volume in Matthew Herbert’s “One” trilogy contains the same sonic ruminations on consumerism and mechanization as the previous installments, as well as their mood and tenor. Like One One, a heady singer-songwriter record, there’s a hushed creeping intimacy to the thing, and a Zen-like acceptance of overbearing forces, even if it intends to keep on kicking against them. Like One Club, which twisted field recordings from the Frankfurt nightclub Robert Johnson into splayed-apart dance music, thereby ingesting corporatized club culture on its own terms, One Pig is an overwhelming, inscrutably political electronic record culled from an unlikely source. In this case, it consists of manipulated recordings Herbert made of a pig’s life, “from birth to plate.”
This certainly isn’t the exploitation record PETA assumed it was gonna be, and it’s not a slab of musical vegan didacticism that presumably, many more, who prefer their music to be good first, and message-oriented second, feared either. No matter how visceral Herbert’s mix of animal grunts and menacing electronics feel, the message is never something simple like, “it sure is sad that we kill animals.” Rather, it moves listeners to be more mindful of consumption and waste (the pig’s parts were even turned into instruments), while acknowledging just how strangely disconnected we are from the animals killed to put food on our table, or say, shoes on our feet…
September Picks.
- G-Mane, All Nite Smoke Session: In extra chill mode here, G-Mane rhymes over beats in the key of Burn One with nods to Third World’s reggae and Cameo’s funk. “Think” is rap song of the year material. BBQ rap. Frankie Beverly for the pimps and playas.
- Phonte, Charity Starts At Home: Phonte’s just a great rapper and his enjambment works weird wonders. Also: Songwriting! The way the hooks don’t come so quickly or hold off when they need to is pretty magical. Also also: very moving middle-aged raps.
- Roman Flügel, Fatty Folders: Organic addictive techno that sounds developed on the spot, but was clearly labored upon until it came out perfect. How else to describe an expertly spare track like “The Improviser”? Do things while listening to this record.
- Toro Y Moi, Freaking Out: Don’t tell nobody, but that pine one wasn’t very good. Here, it’s filter-house meets Dilla surge-hop. Much better. Even if he doesn’t make hip-hop, Bundick’s one of the genre’s best producers. And hey: Why wasn’t “All Alone” in Drive?!
- Various Artists, Drive OST: Happy to see College, too late for IDM, too early for chillwave, get some well-deserved attention. “A Real Hero” might make you cry like a bitch. Clint Martinez’s score hands Tangerine’s Dream’s Thief propulsions a heart.
Spin: J. Cole’s Starry Eyes vs. Phonte’s Long View
J. Cole’s album: Not that bad! I know, I know, that’s pretty low stakes and all, but we’re getting back to this point now where there’s a big cognitive dissonance between what rap nerds—even so-called “populist” rap nerds—are willing to big-up or shit man, at least accept, and what regular ass fans are fucking with. Also see: Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV. There’s a reason people like these albums and there’s a reason they like this Cole character. Nobody’s been hoodwinked here! That said, I don’t see where Cole’s career goes after this and he’s gonna have to get a little cynical and real and take some tips from someone like Phonte if he’s going to be kicking around in a decade or even like, two years from now. Also that Phonte album: Really fucking good. Better than it needs to be.
Phonte Coleman, one half of electronic R&B duo the Foreign Exchange, and formerly of defunct Durham, North Carolina, rap group Little Brother, declares at the start of his solo debut Charity Starts At Home: “I do this all for hip-hop.” Then he pauses and laughs, “I’m lying like shit, I do this for my goddamn mortgage.”
The album title makes clear that lofty goals like changing the world, one conscious rhyme at a time, have been replaced with something more practical. Phonte’s excellent, poignant album is paradoxically focused on decidedly un-hip-hop things: Getting older, realizing rap doesn’t move him too much anymore, the fuck-ups of family and friends, having a wife and kids and lots of bills…
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?