No Trivia

Archive for the ‘2011’ Category

My 2011 Pazz & Jop Ballot

leave a comment

Albums

  • 1. G-Side, The One…Cohesive
  • 2. Holy Ghost!, Holy Ghost!
  • 3. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
  • 4. Cities Aviv, Digital Lows
  • 5. Clams Casino, Instrumental Mixtape
  • 6. Danny Brown, XXX
  • 7. Oneohtrix Point Never, Replica
  • 8. Jay-Z & Kanye West, Watch The Throne
  • 9. Ponytail, Do Whatever You Want All The Time
  • 10. Don Trip & Starlio, Step Brothers

Singles

  • 1. Real Estate, “It’s Real”
  • 2. Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, “Zan With That Lean”
  • 3. Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris, “We Found Love”
  • 4. Patrick Stump, “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)”
  • 5. DJ Khaled ft. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne, “I’m On One”
  • 6. Future Islands, “Balance”
  • 7. Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass”
  • 8. Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx, “I’ll Take Care Of U”
  • 9. Miguel, “Sure Thing”
  • 10. Nite Jewel, “It Goes Through Your Head”

Written by Brandon

January 18th, 2012 at 3:45 am

Posted in 2011, Village Voice

December Picks.

leave a comment

  • Squadda B, Back $eling Crack: Hipster-friendly rapper reminds you that his come-up is just as dark and regret-filled as your favorite obnoxious cornerboy MC. A challenge to those saying cloud rap is lightweight escapism. Best Green Ova release yet.
  • The Roots, undun: Ready To Die, Me Against The World, and every other deathwish concept rap record gone earnest, symphonic, and told backwards. Achingly sad and ambitious. Begins with boom-bap, ends with Skies Of America-esque free jazz.
  • The Weeknd, Echoes Of Silence: Expected this guy to make one record I loved but wouldn’t even listen to six months after the fact. Instead, he’s doing a whole career in less than a year. The least hook-y, but the most R&B. Figure that one out. Review here.
  • Symmetry, Themes For An Imaginary Film: Touching on everything from Moroder’s American Gigolo OST to Xenakis, Johnny Jewel’s ambitious official/unofficial Drive score arpeggiates, swaggers, and pulses. This one’s for real human beings only. Buy this!
  • Cam’ron & Vado, Boss Of All Bosses 3: Despite piss-poor mastering, this is Cam’s best since Crime Pays. More varied than it needs to be, with AraabMuzik rave raps (“Livin’ Our Life”) and silly sing-alongs (“All My Life”). Needs more Vado though.

Written by Brandon

January 13th, 2012 at 7:29 am

Posted in 2011

10 Records From 2011 That You Probably Didn’t Hear Or Maybe You Heard Them But Didn’t Realize Just How Great They Were?

3 comments

  • B L A C K I E, True Spirit And Not Giving A Fuck: So, if Death Grips is “Waka Flocka Flame for grad students,” that makes B L A C K I E “Waka Flocka for angsty idealistic high-schoolers,” which is preferable. Rites Of Spring raps right here. Fuck with it! Thanks to Jawnita and Monique_R for telling me about this one.
  • Dark Castle, Surrender To All Life Beyond Form: Dude/chick metal duo do EyehateGod strangled doom while conjuring up John Carpenter, D&D, and something that could’ve popped up on a Will Oldham record. Despite the mannered metal weirdness, these guys never turn into producer Sanford Parker’s guinea pigs.
  • Dope Body, Nupping: Punk-funk grunting and super dynamic metal-not-metal riffing that boldly enters RHCP and RATM territory, unashamed. For real, like this thing’ll get funky from time to time, shoving some genuine grooves into defiantly sludgy noisy angry stuff. I got yelled at for listening to this loudly on the train once.
  • James Nasty, The Truth About James Nasty: Scrunches up the feeling of a night of rocking off into 30 breathless minutes, culminating in a near-sober, morning light refix of the Temptations’ “My Girl.” Baltimore Club is a missing piece in this whole global dance music turned American pop phenomenon happening right now.
  • Los, Worth The Wait: This Baltimore Dude’s got that Lil Wayne ability to take popular radio hits and rap his ass off over them and make them feel new and vital once again. Original songs are something he’s still figuring out, but freestyling over nearly every relevant hip-hop hit from 2011 makes this one thrilling enough.
  • Mama’s Mustache, Next Level: Dirty South space R&B from the duo of Jeff B. and the great Mr. DJ. Big Rube shows up! Pair this with Nappy Roots’ Nappy Dot Org and you can pretend Cee-Lo doesn’t exist and still observe that the Dungeon Family did really well last year. You didn’t hear this because you had to buy it. Shame on you.
  • Nacho Picasso, For The Glory: When this self-effacing Seattle rapper got to that Beta Ray Bill reference on “Marvel,” it became clear he wasn’t mining entry-level comics references. The Frazetta-esque cover says the same thing. That’s pretty much the story of this entire tape: A whole lot of thought and effort put into a rarefied, regular dude milieu.
  • No Gang Colors, Honorary Cop: Casually collapses subgenres (grindcore, boom-bap, screw music, doom) into one big fast wail and brings back hatred for the pigs months before #OWS did that for all the rest of us. The lyrics on “Helpful Asshole” are screamed-out poetry. And it’s all over in less than seven minutes.
  • Robag Wruhme, Thora Vukk: Tasteful field recordings amplify the warm-hearted emotion throbbing along to these halcyon house beats. Man, who had a better year than this guy? January’s mix Wuppdeckmischmampflow, this one in April, and Donnerkuppel in November. Robag is that dude right now, even if nobody knows it.
  • Zilla, Zilla Shit: Confessional, pissed-off street shit featuring most of Huntsville. Zilla’s got clever, off-to-the-side hooks, can molt into a wizened O.G. type when necessary, and does sad and angry as good as anybody in Brick Squad. Raps over OutKast’s “You May Die” which I’ve wanted someone to do since I first heard ATliens.

Written by Brandon

January 5th, 2012 at 4:33 am

Posted in 2011

MIX: 50 Best Songs Of 2011.

48 comments

50 Best Songs Of 2011

50 songs. A little more than 3 and a half hours. One big Mp3. Sorry. I could’ve made this into a Spotify playlist or something–though way too many of my favorites weren’t on there–but that’s no fun. I’m not so hot on ranking these songs either, so they’ve been organized into what I’d like to think is a pretty enjoyable mix. I’m going to reveal the tracklist throughout the month, five songs at a time, with some musings on why I think each song is awesome. Gimmicks! But really, I think this should be fun. Enjoy. Feel free to tell me what I missed or just what you liked this year in the comments section. Remember comments sections?! Those used to be pretty fun, right?

  • G-Mane, “Think” off All Nite Smoke Session: Florence, Alabama’s version of Bun B (the morally serious, deep voiced version that would never co-sign Drake) and friend to G-Side (he steals “Pictures” with his lack of propriety) tosses out dozens-like disses while he drops knowledge: “You got a new whip man, that’s tight, go and pick up your son”.
  • Ponytail, “Honey Touches” off Do Whatever You Want All The Time: Fuck dude, do you realize just how intensely sad this song is? Maybe not, because it’s the normal sugar-rush, prog-noise racket and Molly Siegel (now going by Willy) is singing about disappointment like she’s chuckling into the void. “I know it’s not that fun.”
  • G-Side ft. S.L.A.S.H., “Came Up” off The One…Cohesive: Those somber strings do it and the Southern gothic video helps too, but as usual, it’s G-Side’s sincerity, coupled with their understanding that somewhere in there the thing’s gotta knock, that sells this one. This is their single. The one that could/should be on the radio, you know?
  • SBTRKT ft. Sampha, “Something Goes Right” off SBTRKT: SBTRKT is a self-assured producer and Sampha’s one of those “he could sing the phonebook…” types. And so, rather than twist his soulful dubstep into a canny pop structure, Sampha just locates a pocket to croon in and out of and call it a day. Joker, hope you’re taking notes.
  • Todd Terje, “Snooze 4 Love (Original Mix)” off Ragysh: Internet king of the extended dance edit builds a bleary Balearic banger out of blips, bleeps, and bloops and subtle shifts in volume. Apparently, there is a Drive sequel coming out soon? If it also gets turned into a movie, please include this on the OST. Plan an ornate robbery to this.
  • Munchi, “Hope” off Blow Your Head Vol. 2: Dave Nada Presents Moombahton: Not really from this year, but it was on that Mad Decent comp. Plus, this thing’s just gorgeous and aching. If you heard it last year, try DJ Ayres’ Wayne Wonder blend. Problem is, if you heard this song last year, you heard that remix too. Moombahton will eat itself!
  • Skinny Friedman, “Who Da Neighbors Remix” off Trap Rave: More Moombahton. Sorry! Get over yourself. This remix of Juicy J’s retarded, great, catchy mixtape hit shuffles along, sprawls out, gets drilled into your head, breaks down, builds back up, squeaks, and squonks for an epic 7 minutes and 9 seconds.
  • J. Rocc, “Party” off Some Cold Rock Stuf: Who knew J. Rocc had this Armand Van Helden-y jam in him? Taking the Bollywood soundtrack obsession of the Stones Throw crew and turning it into something big loud and fun–instead of kitschy, played-out and obvious. And nerds need their own party rocker’s anthem.
  • Blaqstarr, “Coming Home” off Blaqstarr: The Mixtape: This mixtape track from the Baltimore Club weirdo puts that Last Train To Paris slow jam into a blender, turning Diddy’s pensive soul-searching song into a rambling monologue. This feels like it was knocked out in 5 minutes, which is exactly why it sounds so good.
  • Rashad & Gant-Man, “Heaven Sent” off Bang & Works Vol. 2: Again, from an Other Music-friendly compilation and possibly not from this year. But man, the Atari twinkling, up-up-up energy, and all-over-the-place drums let this one rise above its utilitarian dance-your-ass-off origins. Also on that all-around excellent Ghetto Teknitianz EP.
  • AraabMuzik, “Underground Stream” off Electronic Dream: If the cast of Jersey Shore came back as zombies and they had knives in their hands when they fist-pumped and they were stabbing you in the ears. This is a barely touched refix of DJ Nosferatu. Samples of samples of samples is the future of weird dance and I feel fine about that.
  • Lil Internet, “DMXICO”: Been reading Ioan Grillo’s El Narco, but this song rattles around in my head, making it hard to concentrate. Maybe that’s good, though? Pondering the devastating effects of the American “war on drugs” is pretty maddening. Then again, so is this song. Swiped from Julianne Escobedo Shepherd’s EVR show Universópolis.
  • Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris, “We Found Love” off Talk That Talk: The one was made to listen while rolling on a chintzy e-pill made in a dirty bathtub somewhere. There’s a like, hopeless intensity to the thing, but there’s something genuinely cathartic about this song too. “We found love in a hopeless place.” I mean shit man, that’s what it’s all about right?
  • Uncle Jesse, “Samson”: Dance punk drums, “Percolator”-like drip synths bouncing all around, and a ghostly horn sample that runs between both of your ears, adding some headphone fuckery to a party track that totally doesn’t need such a thing, but is all the better for it.
  • Ultra Naté, “Turn It Up”: Legendary disco house diva out-Gagas Gaga on this Rihanna-for-the-over-30-crowd club single. Disco strings, that thump every song’s got these days, and a polite touch of auto-tune makes this a commercial track with no commercial viability because it’s just a little too well-done?
  • Patrick Stump, “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)” off Truant Wave EP: Goofily charming slow build fist-pump pop that is nevertheless, the antithesis of Katy Perry’s “Firework.” Same cloying message but done just a whole bunch better. Gotta love that overreaching post-emo “depression is a little bit like happy hour” lyrical conceit.
  • Tabi Bonney, “Now’s The Time” off Postcard From Abroad: “We made it”/”we gon’ make it” speak-it-and-it-shall-be-so aspirational raps from this quasi-#BASED DC MC over a beat from Devo Springsteen, who co-produced “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” and according to Wikipedia, did MTV and Sunkist ads–which makes a lot of sense.
  • Soulja Boy, “Zan With That Lean” off Juice: Souljer swagger-jacks YC’s “Racks” into a much better song, so who’s complaining exactly? JUICE! Potentially heart-stopping combinations of drugs have never sounded so fun. JUICE! Makes me wanna do that Curly from The Three Stooges, lay on the ground and spin around dance. JUICE!
  • Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass” off Pink Friday: And with this, “Old Nicki” ought to be buried for good. An unholy fusion of pop and rappity-rap that’s a sly love song to her quiet confidante SB. Makes her verse on Drake’s “Make Me Proud” sound like she’s trying too hard and new single “Roman In Moscow” feel limp and forced. She’s “shtick”-less here.
  • Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx, “I’ll Take Care Of You” off We’re New Here: So, the best song on Take Care isn’t even a Drake song. And those OVO fools cut off the best part: That Eddy Grant’s “Time Warp” on downers dance coda that ends this intensely aching song (and in a way, Scott-Heron’s career) on a damn near positive note.
  • Clams Casino, “Numb” off Instrumentals: G-Side rolled this one up into their widescreen sound for “Pictures” and ASAP Rocky boringly rapped over top of it on “Demons,” but it’s better without any of that. Those live-sounding drums rattle all around better and the melody–LOOK, I’VE RUN OUT OF ADJECTIVES FOR THIS GUY.
  • Nguzunguzu, “Timesup” off Timesup EP: Mysterioso percussion stackers even find a place for a sample of Baltimore club producer DJ Pierre (how has The Fader not grabbed onto him yet?) in here. And when they throw a baby coo-ing into the mix, they’ve almost earned the right to pay homage to Timbaland’s “Are You That Somebody” beat.
  • Burial + Four Tet + Thom Yorke, “Ego” off Ego/Mirror: Rarely ever do these dream collaborations work and even when they do, they barely ever sound um, good? But this is pretty much exactly what it should sound like if these three get in a room together: Yorke’s lost moans plus Four Tet’s patient house plus the hauntological scrape of Burial.
  • Oneohtrix Point Never, “Replica” off Replica: Pairing Guaraldi-like piano with hypnagogic drones and moans is pretty inspired and that Organisation/Kraftwerk “Tone Float” soaring flute thingy proves the texture-filled, jazz-fusion stuff Lopatin’s always repping has comfortably wormed its way into his work.
  • Main Attrakionz, “Chuch” off 808s & Dark Grapes 2: Sad-rapping over Gigi Masin’s “Clouds” at 45RPMs unveils the whole brotherly, anti-street code that’s central to Main, once the cloudy vibes subside. Seeing them play this for like 25 people at 3AM (one of those people being How To Dress Well) at 285 Kent during CMJ was something special.
  • The Field, “Then It’s White” off Looping State Of Mind: Axel Wilner has a few tricks up his sleeve, but who knew that being on some like modern classical shit was one of them? Kinda wish this song went on for 20 more minutes. Not a Clams Casino instrumental. But it could what makes in 10 years if he can keep it up.
  • Big K.R.I.T., “The Vent” off Return Of 4Eva: K.R.I.T. finally came into his own this year by losing his feigned Pimp C snarl and just playing “painfully sincere.” Here, he imagines talking to Kurt Cobain, gets emo (in the self-pitying, well-intentioned misogynist sense), and says the right thing to a mom confronted with the unthinkable.
  • DJ Khaled ft. Drake, Rick Ross, & Lil Wayne, “I’m On One” off We The Best Forever: You got Drake, who at least makes his cynicism interesting here, and Wayne, who sounds too weeded-out to care. Rick Ross obliviously rumbles along, whooping and rapping about banging girls on money stacks. Three different definitions of being “on one.”
  • Curren$y, “She Don’t Want A Man” off Weekend At Burnie’s: An emotionally intelligent understanding that a woman’s needs don’t have to be so different from a man’s needs. Cloud rap meets Slick Rick storytelling meets film noir. Spitta’s best song, if only because it’s so well-wrought and something’s actually at-stake.
  • Jay-Z & Kanye West, “New Day” off Watch The Throne: Over melted Nina Simone, the Throne get real, imagining their lives with a little runt running around. Notice how dread-laden it is, with Jay not ruling out the possibility of divorce or worse, and Kanye pretty much telling Ye’ Jr. everything’s fucked. Future Anthology Of Rap pt. 2, look out.
  • Stalley ft. Rashad, “Slapp” off Lincoln Way Nights: People groaned over his mixtape’s smug subtitle (“intelligent trunk music”) but Stalley’s low-stakes, mythmaking rhymes and producer and hook man Rashad queasy chillwave trunk-rattler totally earn that obnoxious, apt parenthetical. The sneaky, “The New Style” Beasties sample is a bonus.
  • Real Estate, “It’s Real” off Days: Single of the year. Maybe video of the year too. Top five at least. Sad and happy and simple. Confident, catchy, chilled-out pop that wasn’t afraid to get existential. We all wander kinda aimlessly, emotions are hard to express, and leaves decompose. At least the guitars jangle just right.
  • Cities Aviv, “Coastin” off Coastin’: An enormous sunbaked Shirley Bassey sample, some nods to LL Cool J and Nas, and rapping that’s in-the-pocket and traditionalist but twisted enough to sound invigorating and of this New Weird Underground. It’s like Cities is drunkenly rapping all this right into your ear. Available as a 7-inch!
  • KING, “The Story” off The Story EP: Big-upped by Phonte and ?uestlove, sampled by Kendrick Lamar (“Hey”), KING should’ve been over-hyped instead of slept-on. This highlight from their three-song EP pretty much does the same Los Angeles, haze & B as Ariel Pink or Nite Jewel, but with some actual soul thrown in there.
  • Ken Seeno, “Spirit Of 77″ off Open Window: What happens when you combine Terry Riley’s “Rainbow In Curved Air” with Giorgio Moroder’s “Swamps Of Sadness” from The Never Ending Story soundtrack? THIS! Cassette-only, dollar store komische. R.I.P. Ponytail. Long live Ponytail…in weird side-project form, at least.
  • Nite Jewel, “It Goes Through Your Head” off It Goes Through Your Head: Last of the chillwave bangers. No really, things got super diffuse real quick, huh? This one’s got a guitar solo (a crunchy Mike & the Mechanics one at that), a catchy melody, and Gonzalez sings like Joan Baez on “Rejoice In The Sun.”
  • Pictureplane, “Post Physical” off Thee Physical: A steampunk stitching together of noise, minimal techno, and hard house yearning that feels truly trangressive and queer-friendly, which hey, are key components of cool, hip dance music missing from a lot of it right now. Lady Gaga should cover this!
  • Danny Brown, “Scrap Or Die” off XXX: When I spoke to Danny, he explained how the second half of the album was intended to be these like folky, storytelling tales about people he knew. This one is about his uncle. So, the second half of XXX is pretty much the rap version of Lee Hazelwood’s Trouble Is A Lonesome Town?
  • Matic, “Hustle Hard Remix”: Baltimore club producer climbs inside of the cockpit of Luger’s rickety, stomping Voltron robot beat-making machine and mans the controls. It’s not like you can make a Luger beat rowdier or even weirder really, you just gotta match the destructive creativity and twist it up enough. Matic does that.
  • Prurient, “Time’s Arrow” off Time’s Arrow: Remember when Dominick Fernow grew bored with noise and turned 2011 into the year he tried to approximate the theme song to The Terminator? Even love the entry-level alt-goth topic of this song: the Black Dahlia. You can buy this on cassette, and you should.
  • Lil Wayne ft. Drake, “She Will” off Tha Carter IV: Sorry about this one guys, it’s just too good. The hook is gross, Drake sounds icky, and Lil Wayne’s on auto-pilot and Danny Brown’s squirmy sex rap “I Will” shames this, but the whirring, grinding beat from T-Minus and the fact that it sounds great and weird on the radio is enough.
  • Cam’ron & Vado, “American Greed” off Gunz N’ Butta: Secret is, these hardheads made one of the more political rap albums of the year. That album title, and this song’s hook (“American greed turn you into the worst type, you get more dirty when your collar and shirt white”) sorta says it all. Less Maybach Music and more Madoff Music please.
  • DJ Drama ft. Gucci Mane, “Me & My Money” off Third Power: A baroque Drumma Boy beat that Wikipedia tells you Mike Dean co-produced, which isn’t true. The casual ornate-ness of it would make you believe he was, though. A Jaws theme rumble and desperate strings soundtracking Gucci’s co-dependent ode to his money? Very Kanye + Dean.
  • Starlito & Don Trip, “Life” off Step Brothers: Lil Lody! More of these, less Lex Luger rip-offs. Starlito and Don Trip, just keep doing exactly this. Thrillingly sad street rap with enough swagger and an overdose of honesty. Love Lito but he wisely just gets out of the way at a certain point on this one and lets Don Trip go off.
  • Fiend, “Ghost Town” off Cool Is In Session: Listen man, this is a song in which Fiend (who along with German techno producer Robag Wruhme secretly had the best year of anybody and didn’t get enough love) inexplicably raps over a second wave Ska classic really, really well. What more do you want?
  • Miguel, “Sure Thing” off All I Want Is You: Every bit as blissed-out as the Weeknd, which means Miguel’s on some other shit and the Weeknd could and probably should be on the radio. Almost makes up for the existence of “Quickie.” Technically from last year, which I’m just now realizing…
  • Chris Brown ft. Benny Benassi, “Beautiful People” off F.A.M.E.: Wasn’t gonna include this, but it’s just too good to ignore, even if it is from a shit bag, man-baby, women-beating idiot. For what it’s worth, “We Found Love,” Rihanna’s Euro-dance response musically chokes this Breezy song out and gives it a black eye.
  • Holy Ghost!, “Jam For Jerry” off Holy Ghost!: I’ve written a lot about this song this year. But here’s the best way to say it. My best friend Mike shot himself about 5 years ago and though that’s a different tragedy than falling down an elevator shaft, no songs nails grief and guilt better than this one. And you can dance to it!
  • Future Islands, “Balance” off On The Water: Reminding the hopeless that things will get better, worldly-wise vocalist Sam Herring intones, “it just takes time,” like he’s a close friend giving you advice over several beers. Could also be called “We Found Love.” Also kinda knocks in the same bittersweet way. Also also has a really misty-eyed video.
  • Phonte, “The Good Fight” off Charity Starts At Home: Tigallo plays your hard-assed dad, smacking some sense into you while empathizing with your situation, but mostly just being all, “yo, deal with it like everybody else.” The first verse lay-off story’s a fucking tearjerker. Little Brother’s “Speed” retrofitted for the recession.

image stolen from Keenan Marshall Keller

Written by Brandon

December 17th, 2011 at 9:51 pm

Posted in 2011, mix CD

Year-End Stuff

leave a comment

  • Baltimore City Paper: I did some blurbs for film (Drive and Midnight In Paris), music (Jay-Z & Kanye, Frank Ocean, Beyonce), and local music (DJ Pierre, DDm, E Major).
  • Pitchfork: I’m sure you already read the thing, but I did some writing for the Pitchfork year-end extravaganza. Holy Ghost!’s “Jam For Jerry” in the “The Top 100 Tracks,” Gil-Scott Heron & Jamie xx’s We’re New Here for “Albums Of The Year: Honorable Mention,” and Danny Brown’s XXX for “The Top 50 Albums.”
  • SPIN: I helped with the “40 Best Rap Albums of 2011” list and wrote the blurbs for J. Rocc, J. Cole, Kristmas, Clams Casino, and Mouse On Tha Track. I think it’s a pretty unimpeachable list. And there’s also SPIN’s “50 Best Albums Of 2011″. I wrote about SBTRKT and Bon Iver, two really great albums that I didn’t get the chance to comment on much this year.

Written by Brandon

December 17th, 2011 at 9:38 pm

Posted in 2011, Spin

MIX: The Best Rap Songs of the Second Half of the Year

5 comments

The Best Rap Songs of the Second Half of the Year.

To follow-up this SPIN post from July, here are my favorite rap songs from the second half of 2011. I’m about to give you a bunch of write-ups for my “50 Best Songs Of 2011,” so not gonna give you pithy song descriptions for these, just a mix, which you can download above.

And yeah, there’s some crossover between this list and my 50 songs of 2011 one, and in some cases, I’ve picked different songs from artists represented on that list, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to you all I’m sure, but in my head, what makes a great song and a great rap song isn’t necessarily the same thing.

  • Phonte, “The Good Fight”
  • G-Side, “Rabbits”
  • Nacho Picasso, “Marvel”
  • Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, “Thuggin”
  • The Roots ft. Phonte & Dice Raw, “One Time”
  • Young Jeezy, “Shake Life”
  • G-Mane, “Think”
  • Fiend “Ghost Town”
  • Drake, “Look What You’ve Done”
  • DDm, “Last On Ur Dial”
  • Cities Aviv & Royal T, “Araw”
  • Lil Wayne, “Nightmares Of The Bottom”
  • Starlito & Don Trip, “Life”
  • XV, “Wichita”
  • Main Attrakionz & Shady Blaze, “Change”
  • Jay-Z & Kanye West, “Who Gon’ Stop Me”
  • B L A C K I E, “Warchild”
  • Danny Brown, “Lie4″

Written by Brandon

December 17th, 2011 at 6:26 pm

Posted in 2011, mix CD

November Picks.

leave a comment

  • G-Side, iSLAND: They did it again. Their best one yet, even if it is the least accessible. A stalking, angry record: “Recognize,” “Our Thing,” and “16 Shots.” Mo’ blog love and a little mo’ money, means mo’ problems. “Exploratory jazz” makes sense. Review here.
  • Oneohtrix Point Never, Replica: Lopatin doesn’t try so hard and does his best work. Hiccuping samples, Charlie Brown piano, secret basslines. Hypnotic because nothing comes together like it should. Can the next Drake feature OPN and Nguzunguzu plz?!
  • Rimar, Higher Ground: Originally out in the spring, slept-on by me until September, and now out on vinyl. Ostensibly “chillwave” though there’s some energy and swagger to this one and a whole lotta heart. The year’s most romantic record! Free here. Buy here.
  • Nicolay & the Hot At Nights, Shibuya Session EP: The Eno-house of 2009’s criminally underrated City Lights Vol. 2: Shibuya Nights turns into George Benson-like jazz thanks to Raleigh’s the Hot At Nights. Nicolay on keys keeps it on the good side of cheesy.
  • Madlib & Freddie Gibbs, Thuggin’ EP: Gibbs isn’t so much “back” as finally figuring out his footing. Madlib flips “Children Of The Ghetto” which yo, that’s not digging, it was on a Soul Jazz comp, but who cares. A perfect 12-inch. It’s even got “bonus beats!”

Written by Brandon

November 30th, 2011 at 9:32 pm

Posted in 2011

October Picks.

3 comments

  • 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.

Written by Brandon

October 31st, 2011 at 6:42 am

Posted in 2011

September Picks.

leave a comment

  • 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.

Written by Brandon

October 5th, 2011 at 7:58 am

Posted in 2011

August Picks.

5 comments

  • Jay-Z & Kanye West, Watch The Throne: Production-wise, this is just massive, but it’s ultimately a weirdly timid, mindful epic that is perfectly in-tune, not depressingly out of touch, with the current economic times. You should probably listen harder!
  • Lil Wayne, Tha Carter IV: Wayne out of jail and not all that interested in proving himself to anybody so eat a dick, slinks back to the formula for the first and best edition of Tha Carter. A very good, very solid rap album.
  • DDm, TV Killed The Radio Star: He was one of Baltimore’s best rappers before he was Baltimore’s first out, gay rapper and this little, ambitious EP is more of the same, which is its own kind of statement. Then, it hits you in the gut with “Last On Ur Dial.”
  • The Weeknd, Thursday: The-Dream-isms mix with Garbage Version 2.0-esque rock, gorgeous glitch, dub, and acoustic soul. Like the “ass to ass” scene from Requiem For A Dream in the form of a bummer slow jams album. A grower.
  • Median, The Sender: Sensitive, nerdy-in-a-good-way NC MC teams up with a reunited Phonte and 9th Wonder and makes a warm even kinda cloud-rappy follow up to his debut. Tigallo sings and raps, 9th and friends hand over weird but boom-bap enough beats.

Written by Brandon

August 31st, 2011 at 11:27 pm

Posted in 2011

« Older Entries