Top Albums of 2013: #10-1

#10: Ty Segall - SLEEPER

Throughout his insanely prolific career, Ty Segall had certainly given the impression that his strengths came from fuzz and noise and general garage rock abandon. So when word came that his first album after his trifecta of amazing albums from 2012 would be largely acoustic, it was cause for some minor concern. Sure, his knack for songwriting could be expected to remain intact when it was ported into an acoustic setting, but what about that power? SLEEPER dashed those fears, finding the power in quietude. Even the most pleasant of dreams often come with a feeling that something isn’t quite right, and the prettiest songs on here are the most unsettling. Songs like “She Don’t Care” are gorgeous, but the lyrics signal the deterioration of an important relationship. It’s a dark, sad, beautiful, catchy record, and it’s possibly the best of his career so far.

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#9: DJ Rashad - Double Cup

Electronic music has spawned so many distinct subgenres over the last forty years that it’s hard for a relative outsider such as myself to find a good place to start with most of them. Outside of the recent L.A. beat scene which I have listened to a lot of, my explorations of other vibrant electronic forms, such as house, techno, jungle, drum and bass, dubstep, minimalist/ambient, and others is unfortunately been very limited. As a Chicago native, the sound that I am most disappointed in myself for ignoring is footwork, which was built by local producers from pieces of house, juke, hip-hop, and R&B. It’s a sound that’s gained increasing traction over the past few years, and it’s pushed into prominence through the Bangs & Works compilations, exciting live performances by Traxman and others, and Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap, which counts footwork as an important influence. DJ Rashad’s debut album Double Cup proves that the community of footwork artists is ready for and deserving of more attention. It’s about as funky and soulful as electronic music, even sample-based electronic music, gets, and it makes the most of footwork’s sonic parameters. Rashad’s canny use of vocal samples and guest features, which he chops up and uses in the same way he uses the instrumental, is the best part of this record, which situates him as the man to beat among footwork producers in Chicago.

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20 Years of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

At this point, twenty years to the day after Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) came out, using the word ‘grimy’ to describe that album or anything that the Wu-Tang Clan has done since has become the hoariest of clichés. Yet watching the video for “Protect Ya Neck,” the group’s first single, it’s clear that no other word so perfectly encapsulates what they were doing. Anything resembling professionalism, like proper lighting or good cameras, is nonexistent, everything looks like a first take, and they apparently couldn’t be bothered to remove the camcorder time stamp from most of the color shots. A bunch of the group members’ names are misspelled (Inspektah Deck, Ghost Face Killer, the Jizah). It’s impossible to really tell, but my guess that there are about forty people in the video seems like a conservative estimate, and all but a few of them are completely unrecognizable.[1] Just how many of them are actually in the group? It isn’t clear from the video. A bunch of them have swords, and there are scary-looking guys lurking in project hallways and alleys in the back of most of the shots. The video is five minutes of menace and a dizzying array of lyrical styles over an intoxicated, haphazardly mixed beat the likes of which had not been heard before.

A few months before the “Protect Ya Neck” video started gaining traction on Rap City, the Wu-Tang Clan got their first break in a way that fits the menace that they projected in that first video perfectly. During an episode of the Stretch & Bobbito Show, which aired every Thursday night on WKCR 89.9FM from one to five in the morning, a few members and affiliates of the Clan either snuck or broke into the WKCR offices, unmarked white label 12” in hand.[2] If threats were made they were no more than implied, but the message was clear: it was in Stretch & Bobbito’s best interest to play the song. “Protect Ya Neck” got its first radio play that night, and it earned the group’s members spots as semi-regular presences on the show until 1998 when it went off the air.

Review: Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge - Twelve Reasons to Die

Since Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele dropped in 2000 and essentially closed the book on the Wu-Tang Clan’s near-unimpeachable nineties run, there have been only a handful of serious landmarks in the Wu-Tang catalog: Masta Killa’s No Said Date in 2004, Ghostface’s Fishscale in 2006, Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II in 2009.[1] With the latter, Raekwon knocked Ghostface out of the top spot in the Wu-Tang pantheon, and since then Ghostface has been spinning his wheels a bit, releasing the ill-advised but amazingly titled R&B project Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, the good but undercooked Apollo Kids, the tossed off Ghost/Rae/Meth collaboration Wu-Massacre, and the painfully generic Wu-Block with the LOX’s Sheek Louch. On Twelve Reasons to Die, Ghostface is reenergized and focused, and he sounds hungry again for the first time since Fishscale. Ghost has given the Clan their fourth landmark album of their second decade.

Spray Cans Vol. 010: Wu-Syndicate - "Bust a Slug"

 

Wu-Syndicate - "Bust a Slug" (Wu-Tang Records, 1999)

In my recent post on the Wu-Tang Clan and live instrumentation I wrote briefly about The Swarm, the first of three Wu-Tang Killa Bees compilations the illustrated the Wu brand’s diminishing returns in the late nineties and early 2000s.[1] There are some throwaways throughout The Swarm’s sixteen songs, but for the most part it’s a great introduction to many of the Killa Bees. Some of the artists who provided these highlights (The Beggaz, Ruthless Bastards) never got the chance to put out albums due to financial mismanagement at Wu-Tang Records, while others (Black Knights of the North Star, A.I.G.) never lived up to their potential on subsequent releases. None of the new artists featured on the record sounded like they could ever surpass the Clan, but a few of them carved out effective careers of their own, although some of these careers were extremely brief.

Wu-Syndicate fits this latter description exactly. The group self-released one single under the name Crhyme Syndicate in 1996, but it unsurprisingly didn’t get much attention.[2] Somehow, this 12” found its way into the hands of the RZA, who signed them to Wu-Tang Records in time to include the b-side “Where Wuz Heaven” on The Swarm. Produced by DJ Devastator, “Where Wuz Heaven” is a great slice of ghetto life story song with a plaintive guitar sample, a ghostly soul vocal sample on the chorus, and great rapping from Myalansky.[3] The group changed its name to Wu-Syndicate, presumably as a way of helping it get more attention by making its affiliation with the Clan more explicit.[4]

“Where Wuz Heaven” appeared two more times, first as the a-side on the first single credited to Wu-Syndicate and again as the seventh song on the group’s self-titled debut album, released on Wu-Tang Records in 1999. Wu-Syndicate is a good artifact of nineties New York street rap, but the group struggles in a few respects. First and most importantly, the group never fully transcends its direct influences. DJ Devastator, who handles most of the album’s production,[5] is so indebted to RZA and Havoc that his beats lack personality on many of the tracks, even when his production is quite good. Myalansky, Joe Mafia, and Napoleon (who isn’t listed on the album cover but is part of the group) are all good MCs, but like most of the second-string Killa Bees they don’t quite have the personality or distinct enough personalities to anchor a whole album. As a result, the album’s eighteen songs blend together after a while. When a Wu-Syndicate song pops up on shuffle, I almost never skip it, but when I put on the whole album it’s far too easy to tune it out. The second half of the album suffers more than the first by default, since Wu-Syndicate fatigue isn’t really a problem until after “Where Wuz Heaven” passes around the album’s midpoint. Still, there’s one extremely bright spot near the end of the album that demands attention even if you’ve lost interest in what Wu-Syndicate is serving up: “Bust a Slug,” the album’s second single.

A Brief History of the Wu-Tang Clan and Live Instrumentation

On Tuesday, Soul Temple Records will be releasing Twelve Reasons to Die, the new collaborative album by Ghostface Killah and producer/multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge.[1] The record’s been streaming for nearly a week now, and it’s great. It’s definitely the best Ghostface album since Fishscale, and I’m tempted to go back even further and place it third behind only Supreme Clientele and Ironman. I’ll be putting up a review of the record later this week, but in the meantime, I thought I’d look back at the Wu-Tang Clan’s previous endeavors with bands and live instrumentation.

When the Clan first came on the scene in 1993, RZA’s warped sample-based beats were a big part of their appeal. The dust and grit of old records was a palpable part of their grimy sound. Throughout the initial run of Wu-Tang solo albums, RZA gradually refined this sound, culminating in the cinematic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords and the soulful Ironman. When it came time for the Clan to reform like Voltron for their second group album in 1997, RZA had begun moving away from this strictly sample-based sound. Most of the album’s twenty-seven songs have samples, but quite a few of them are spiced with keyboards. Notably, “Reunited,” the first song on the album (after the extended opening skit that is “Wu-Revolution”) is built almost entirely from some incredible live violin.

Review: The Delfonics - Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics

A ton of artists have been trying to recreate the sounds of classic sixties and seventies soul over the last fifteen years or so. Their success rate has been low. A few—Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley,[1] and Myron & E—have managed to tap into that old sound in a way that allows them to create songs in that style that sound fresh and vibrant and new. Most artists who try to do this end up making stale songs that rehash the former glories of other artists. They miss some crucial quality that great classic soul has, making soulless music that is soul in name only. On the soundtrack to Black Dynamite (2009), Adrian Younge fell into the former category, but since then he has moved from the strict template of soul revivalism with mixed results. In his episode of Noisey’s web series Crate Diggers, he says of Something About April, his album with his group Venice Dawn, that “it’s supposed to be a kind of record that a record collector would find and want to sample and make music off of.” Younge isn’t trying to exactly recreate the sounds of the past, he tries to create old style music through the lens of a hip-hop head in the present. All of his music sounds slightly out of time as a result. The Venice Dawn project clearly bears out this goal, but the results too often sound stiff and forced, the work of an artist with tremendous potential who hadn’t yet figured out how to best translate his sonic ideas into music.

Hooking up with William Hart, lead singer and primary songwriter from the Delfonics, has proven to be the missing link for Younge. Aside from 1999’s forgettable Forever New, the Delfonics haven’t been much of a going concern since they released their last album on Philly Groove, Alive & Kicking, in 1974. The group found new life in the nineties as their songs were sampled hundreds of times by hip-hop artists.[2] It is appropriate then that Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics has an audible hip-hop influence. Instead of attempting to recreate the string-laden sound of classic Delfonics records, Younge and Hart opt for a stripped-down cinematic break-heavy sound that works like gangbusters. Opener “Stop and Look (And You Have Found Love)” is almost entirely comprised of an ominous bass line and drum rolls tailor made for beatmakers to sample. The same is true of the knocking drums of side two opener “Stand Up,” and the skittering snare of “Just Love.” “Stand Up” features the longest break on the album, and it’s practically begging for a RZA or a Madlib to chop it up. “Lover’s Melody” and “Enemies,” with their dark mood and evocative vibe that are heavily indebted to Ennio Morricone, could function as classic Wu-Tang songs. “Enemies” has such a Wu-Tang indebted sound that it’s actually being reused on Younge’s upcoming collaboration with Ghostface Killah. “Lost Without You” is a gorgeous slice of light psychedelic soul that ends with a gospel chorus that immediately reminded me of the closing tracks on the Gorillaz’s Demon Days. The album ends perfectly with “Life Never Ends,” one of the only songs on the album to feature strings. The song reaches back to a period before the Delfonics were active, recalling the proto-psychedelic pop of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, another appropriately cinematic influence. Hart’s voice remains as powerful as ever, and his distinctive falsetto keeps this album firmly rooted in the Delfonics lineage even though it’s such a sonic departure for the group.

Even without strings, Younge is adept at recreating the classic Delfonics vibe, especially on the great “I Can’t Cry No More.” This one song aside, the songs that try to reproduce the old Delfonics tend to be among the weakest on the album, and “Silently” and “Party’s Over” don’t quite come together as well as the rest of the record. Thankfully, these songs are surrounded by everything that is great on this album, and the songs are short enough that it isn’t a bother to wait through them for the album’s real gems. Even with the couple of duds on this album, break specialists will find a lot to love in Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics. Shooting an old group’s sound through his own cinematic hip-hop sensibility has given Younge the focus he needed to make an album in the style of the European soundtrack composers and psychedelic soul artists that he idolizes without sounding so calculated and forced.[3]

Songs after the jump.

Masta Killa and "Glaciers of Ice"

I was just listening to this song a bunch earlier today and I’m struck by two things that make this one of the best tracks on Raekwon’s nearly perfect Only Built 4 Cuban Lunx. First, it took some serious audacity for RZA to flip the same sample twice on the same album, but he did just that with the rugged strings that drive “Guillotine (Swordz)” and underpin this song. Second, Masta Killa was unstoppable from his first verse on “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” through everything he did on Wu-Tang Forever, and this song is no exception. He was unstoppable enough that he could show up between Raekwon and Ghostface in their primes on a song and still be the illest by a wide margin. Inspectah Deck and U-God were similarly astounding during this five year period, and it’s a shame that all three didn’t get RZA-produced solo albums during the five-year plan. A Masta Killa album in 1996 would have undoubtedly been a classic since RZA didn’t make a bad beat during this era and Masta Killa was capable of verses like this. It probably would’ve even surpassed No Said Date.

RZA and Ghostface Suggest a Few Reasons to Die

The RZA is a musical visionary and his knowledge of kung fu flicks is damn near unparalleled in both the world of hip-hop and among the general public.[1] When the RZA speaks on any topic—but especially when he talks about kung fu or music—he speaks with a wisdom that parallels the abbots in the Shaw Brothers movies he holds in such high regard. Unfortunately, his directorial debut The Man with the Iron Fists was a boring mess of a kung fu movie, too Technicolor bright and half-baked to even be worthy of the temple of Shaolin greats.[2] RZA’s artistic vision proved to be an unfortunately poor fit for cinema, even as his best music has a palpable cinematic feel to it.

Now that he’s gotten his movie out of his system, the RZA has stepped back behind the scenes of the most exciting new Wu-Tang record since Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II came out four years ago: Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge’s Twelve Reasons to Die. The three songs from the album that have leaked (“The Rise of the Ghostface Killah,” “The Sure Shot (Parts 1 and 2),” and “Enemies All Around Me,” the last of which features William Hart of the Delfonics) have all been astounding slices of Morricone-indebted cinematic goon rap. This is due primarily to Younge’s live band instrumentals that reach the potential that was hinted at in Wu-Tang Chamber Music (which featured the Revelations as the backing band). RZA is listed as executive producer on the album—the first Ghostface record overseen by RZA since the genius Supreme Clientele in 2000—and his and Younge’s vision have reenergized Ghost. The featured artists are all from the lesser-known end of the Wu-Tang camp—Masta Killa, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, and a recently released from prison Killa Sin, all of whom benefit greatly from some artistic guidance or executive production.

The trailer for the Twelve Reasons to Die album and 49-date tour (presumably directed by Younge, who has handled the majority of the videos from his previous projects) is more effective in one minute than RZA was with a full hour and a half.

Soul Temple Records will release Twelve Reasons to Die on April 16. A review of the album and of the April 26 show at Chicago’s Abbey Pub will be coming in the next month.

Also as a bonus, here’s the trailer for the six issue comic book miniseries that is accompanying the album’s release. The always great Jim Mahfood and Ben Templesmith are among the exciting roster of artists involved with this project.

 

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[1] For evidence of this, check out the DVD commentary for The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin, where RZA wipes the floor with the other commentator, noted film critic Andy Klein. There is absolutely no reason RZA or anyone else should know who choreographed seemingly every fight in every kung fu movie ever released, but RZA gives the impression that he does.

[2] Full disclosure: when I saw The Man with the Iron Fists in theaters, I was so bored that I fell asleep for a bit, and I’m not sure how much of the movie I missed. Even with this sleep break, the movie still felt much longer than its 96 minute runtime.

Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge - "The Rise of the Ghostface KIllah"

Ghostface never really fell off. Sure, Wizard of Poetry was a weird R&B debacle, and Apollo Kids had some good songs on it, but when you’re the guy who made Ironman and Supreme Clientele, some good songs isn’t nearly good enough. It’s hardly a coincidence that Ironman and Supreme Clientele, his two best records, are the only two Ghostface albums executive produced by RZA. While most of the Abbot’s beats haven’t exactly been helping his legacy over the last few years, his vision and ability to oversee an entire project hasn’t really diminished. That RZA is executive producing Ghostface’s new album Twelve Reasons to Die is just one of several reasons why it’s one of my most anticipated albums of the year. Two other reasons: First, the album is produced by Adrian Younge, the sonic architect behind the amazing soundtrack to Black Dynamite and his own Something About April album. Younge produced the Delfonics’ new album, their best since their self-titled album in 1970. The backing tracks on Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics sound like the kind of things that RZA would have sampled on the first round of Wu-Tang solo albums. Adriane Younge has become better at channeling the classic RZA sound than the RZA is these days, and he’s able to do it without sacrificing his own style in favor of rote imitation. Fittingly, the Delfonics appeared on “After the Smoke is Clear,” one of the best songs on Ironman, and will also be making an appearance on at least one song on Twelve Reasons to Die.

The other reason to be excited is “The Rise of the Ghostface Killah,” the first track released from the album. RZA delivers a great spoken intro, and the kung-fu soundtrack beat sounds it could have been an Ironman bonus track, while Ghost is spitting criminology raps and non-sequiturs with an urgency unseen since at least the Fishscale days. It sounds like Adrian Younge would probably have done a better job of scoring The Man with the Iron Fists than the RZA did. If the other Wu-Tang members that guest on this record sound this good, and Trife and Sheek Louch don’t show up to drag down any of the songs, we’ll have a Wu-Tang classic on our hands. Hopefully the other generals have Younge’s number in their rolodexes. 

Download "The Rise of Ghostface Killah" and pre-order Twelve Reasons to Die

Twelve Reasons to Die is out on April 16.