A blog about hip-hop, jazz, punk, psychedelic rock, funk, and whatever other kinds of music I get inspired to write about. There are too many good sounds out there for me to get to them all, but I'm doing my best.
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.
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.
Ty Segall’s father died late last year. Cancer took him. In
the aftermath, Ty had some sort of serious disagreement with his mother, and he
severed their relationship. In order to maintain some semblance of family, he
moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where his sister lives. The king of
San Francisco garage rock suddenly found himself in a new home away from his
kingdom. To make sense of his new surroundings, his irrevocably altered family
life, and death, he put down his electric guitar and picked up an acoustic one,
on which he wrote exactly ten songs. There were no outtakes.
The result is Sleeper,
Segall’s eleventh album in five years. And after ten albums of fuzz and
feedback and squalling guitars, it’s a testament to his songwriting that not
only did he not lose his identity when he removed all of those factors, he actually
strengthened and stretched that sound in some of the most exciting ways of his
career so far.
After playing most of the instruments himself on his solo
albums, Ty Segall had to assemble a band to bring that material into a live
setting.It took a couple of years, but
that band has finally recorded an album together, and it’s the heaviest album
of Segall’s career.Opening track “Death”
begins with about a minute of feedback before transforming into a Stooges-esque
guitar attack with lyrics about eyes.The album mostly sticks to this heavy proto-metal/space garage vibe for
its runtime, with a few detours, such as “Tell Me What’s Inside Your Heart,”
which is the least noisy track on the album but maintains a tempo fast enough
that the rhythm section begins falling apart to the point where the whole band
has to switch gears and return to a space rock vibe near the end of the song. The album also sports the best cover of “Diddy
Wah Diddy” ever recorded by anyone other than Captain Beefheart.In spite of the general heaviness and the
fuzz drenching the entire album, Segall’s melodic gifts and his skill at
crafting memorable hooks shines through the grit and grime, especially on songs
like the short and punchy “Muscle Man” and the album standout “I Bought My Eyes.”Fittingly, the album ends with the ten minute
“Fuzz War,” which is exactly what the title implies: a battle of feedback,
heavy guitar distortion, and machine gun drums.It’s a fitting way to end an album that seems constantly in danger of going
off the rails.
At this point, it’s impossible to talk about Channel Orange without talking about the
letter he put online right before the album came out.Outing himself as having a sexual orientation
that isn’t straight was incredibly brave in a hip hop/R&B world that’s
known for having problems with hypermasculinity and homophobia.It’s a testament to how great this album is that
it didn’t get completely swallowed up by the subsequent publicity and
hype.
There isn’t really much to say about this album that hasn’t
already been said.It’s been labeled the
most ambitious major label hip hop record in years (which is true), an instant
classic (nope, sorry, that’s an absurd contradiction), and overstuffed with
skits that ruin the momentum of the album (yeah, a little bit).When his previous album Section.80 came out last year, I wasn’t sold on Kendrick or the
rest of his Black Hippy crew.I didn’t
like the beats or the whiny rock hooks very much, and I thought his voice was
obnoxious.Black Hippy has steadily
improved since, with standout releases like Schoolboy Q’s Habits & Contradictions and Ab-Soul’s Control System, and good kid,
m.A.A.d. city is the most consistently great project to come out of Black
Hippy.The album isn’t perfect by any
stretch.“Backseat Freestyle” works
within the context of the album, but it sounds ridiculous and a little stupid
when taken on its own. That Drake verse
on “Poetic Justice” is weak (that Janet Jackson sample must have been about
half of the album’s budget too).Kendrick seems like he’s trying a bit too hard to make a Classic Album.All of these are minor problems, however, and
good kid, m.A.A.d. city positions
Kendrick as one of the most exciting and interesting young rappers of this
era.If nothing else, the huge jump in
quality from Section.80 to this album
would indicate that his next album will be insane if he improves even a little
bit more.
In the fifteen years since Jason Pierce’s masterpiece Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in
Space was released the Spiritualized project has been marked by uneven
albums that don’t match his previous highs (although 2008’s Songs in A&E came closest), and the
band has been frequently derailed by a series of serious illnesses that has
left Pierce hospitalized for much of the last five years.Sweet
Heart Sweet Light, recorded while Pierce was undergoing experimental
chemotherapy for a life-threatening liver disease, finds him in a more positive
and peaceful place than he’s ever been.The themes of death, drugs, God, and redemption remain ever-present, but
the usual Spiritualized subject matter is colored with brighter sonic textures
and more optimistic and uplifting songwriting.
El-P’s first solo album Fantastic
Damage, released in 2002, tapped into the uncertainty and fear of the
immediate aftermath of 9/11 better than nearly any other record, with its
claustrophobic beats and urgent, paranoid lyrics. Ten years later, the United
States is in many ways even worse. Privacy rights have been systematically
dismantled, the economy is in shambles, and spectacularly horrifying acts of
violence have become frequent occurrences. In the midst of all of this, El-P
released his third and possibly best solo album, Cancer 4 Cure, which taps into the tenor of the times just as
effectively as his previous albums have. The world of Cancer 4 Cure is a darker, scarier reflection of our current times,
where there are drones flying over New York City, anyone could be an agent for
some nefarious shadow organization, and each key is tapped to the BPM of the
sirens in the war zone that was once New York. El-P’s beats have become more
robust since his solo debut, with layers upon layers of synths, drum machines,
and samples coming together in a dystopian futuristic soundscape for his
rhymes.
"Request Denied"
"Tougher Colder Killer" (feat. Killer Mike & Despot)
