Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Southern Rap, Rising Again



Big K.R.I.T. - Return of 4eva

Return of 4eva can be pretty accurately described as the kind of Kanye West album that Kanye West stopped making years ago. Yes, producer-rapper Big K.R.I.T. has a Mississippi drawl and his drum patterns owe more to stuttering Southern hi-hats than East Coast boom-bap, but the similarities are inescapable: omnipresent soul samples, the awkward but endearingly earnest flow, the humble-dreamer-turned-overnight-success narrative arc, conscious-rap leanings without getting Talib-Kweli-level-grating, songs about God (!). 4eva isn't exactly as good as The College Dropout, but then as a free mixtape it's hardly supposed to be, and the banger-to-mash ratio here is stunningly high. K.R.I.T. as a producer is pretty great with chilled-out gentle-head-nod driving rap (more often than not actually about cars - see standout "Time Machine"), but he's at his best when Cuisinarting up vocals for real trunk-rattlers - see "R4 Theme Song" and a remix of "Country Shit" aided greatly by Ludacris tearing up a guest appearance like he hasn't in years. Some are going to sneer at this album for its total lack of innovation, and K.R.I.T. is nothing if not retro, but as rap revivalists go, K.R.I.T. is up there with Freddie Gibbs as one of the best working today.



G-Side - The ONE...COHESIVE

You'll have to leave Mississippi for Alabama to find real rap innovation. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about Huntsville rap duo of G-Side themselves, although they're ferociously talented - pairing the loud, thick voice of ST 2 Lettaz with the thin rasp of Yung Clova approaches Ghostface-Raekwon levels of rap duo synergy, and it's interesting to hear an album that gets into the particulars of label-less minor rap stardom as deeply as these guys do ("Waiting for my passport at the last minute/Next week is my first show in Toronto/And if it don't come then I don't go/But I guess you could say that's one of them good problems)". Furthermore, their Rolodex is almost as much of an asset as their flows. None of the many guests on this album have achieved any real degree of fame, and their hunger is luckily very evident - watch out in particular for the chainsaw voice of Mic Strange on "Never".

The innovation here is in the stunning, next-level production, mostly by the Block Beattaz, although Clams Casino provides a monster of a beat that is hilariously mismatched to a song about, um, sexting ("Pictures"). Draped in reverb and swelling with hyperdramatic strings and wall-of-sound synths, these beats go for a kind of cosmic drama that's usually only the province of rock music, and the result is thrilling. This is no small part due to the voracious taste of the production teams here, who seem as likely to throw in a Beach House sample (album standout "How Far") as they are an 808. It's very hard to think of another rap album that sounds quite like this, and that alone is probably reason enough to listen to this thing.



Back to BZNZ

After last week's drugged diversions, it's back to BZNZ for me, which basically means back to shit that sounds like Blade Runner looks.  That's right, my bread and butter is this amorphous genre out there in the empty space between dubstep, electro, and hip hop (with a touch of footwork), just where you'd find Clams Casino lurking. 

What's in a name? Well, Clams Casino is a cat from New Jersey (current and past home of all BZNZmen), who chose as his stage name a delicious appetizer comprised of clams on the halfshell with breadcrumbs and bacon. The name aside, this guy sounds like a more straight hip hop version of Burial, which is perhaps surprising given his collaborations with the likes of Soulja Boy and Lil B. I don't take the name of DJ Shadow lightly, but the album has a similar flavor to Endtroducing and a other Mo' Wax artists as well. Clams and his devotees would call this stuff "based" music, perhaps another microgenre in an era of far too many microgenres. Leaving the genre labeling aside, these beats are tight.

It's no small feat that these beats stand up so well without lyricists. Instrumental albums run the risk of sounding incomplete, but then again I haven't heard the other versions of almost all of these tracks. In fact, I can't imagine where an mc would even fit on most of these tracks amidst the man Clams' propulsive rhythms, let alone the mc who taught the world what it meant to "superman". Admittedly it could be done, since the overall structure is not terribly complex, but verse would break the hypnotic spell. With more Clams Casino in the pipeline in the form of an EP entitled The Rainforest, due June 27, fans of this based-chill-dub-wave-core-hop music can smile.

Just download it, already! You'll be glad you did.


Clams Casino - Numb by HUNGRYiPOD
Clams Casino - Cold War by mantequilla Motivation by JONEZ

Monday, April 25, 2011

April Mudmix/DJ Troubl



Yes, I put up a mix last week, but it was pretty last minute. Also, I should have put the link to DJ Troubl's Journey Into Fresh Diggin': Quasimoto Meets Himself. The definitive Quasimoto/Madlib mix, goes through tons of Lord Quas tracks and beautifully mixes up the tracks that Madlib sampled in making the beats. I still listen to this mix at least once a month, and it is just too perfect. Cop it here.

NOW for the April mix. Here at school it's crunch time for me. Junior year, I've got about 40 more pages to write over the next 2 weeks. Things are going well, and I'm actually interested in what I'm writing about. Nonetheless, it's always hard to pick the right music to listen to when you're stressed out of your mind but have to get words on paper (or Microsoft Word). One thing I've found is that, as much as I like 3-5 minute songs, they can be dangerously distractive. A verse, a chorus, a catchy breakdown, sometimes it's just too much. So here's a mix of my study aids. When I need something in my ears, something enjoyable, something interesting, but something that is loooong. So the theme for this mix is that the songs are all over 10 minutes long. I usually put these mixes up as one long .mp3 file, but mediafire doesn't allow files larger than 200 mb. The 11 songs here added up to 250 mb and 2.5 hours of music. Genres vary, though I tried to pick out ones that aren't tooabrasive. Tracklist as follows, arranged in order of decreasing length.

Boredoms - Seadrum - One of my biggest regrets in life is not driving up to New York on 7/7/07 for 77 Boadrum. Blasting this is the closest I’ll get. 23 minutes.
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O – Psycho Buddha - Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 22 minutes
John Coltrane - Om, Part 2 – I would have put Ascension on this, but 40 minutes is pushing it. 14 minutes.
Keiji Haino & Tatsuya Yoshida - At the instant when one thinks – I would have put up やらないが できないことに なってゆく, but it’s 68 minutes long. There are also some really catchy parts of this one and Tatsuya’s drumming is killer too. 12 minutes.
Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra - Sleeping Beauty – A nice mellow jam. 12 minutes
Little Women - Throat IV – The most listenable on the album. 11.5 minutes.
Mount Eerie - Through The Trees – Therapeutic. 11.5 minutes.
The Unicorns – Haunted House [Live at The Earl] - Punched that gator. Storytellers. 11.5 mintues.
Jim O’Rourke - I'm Happy – Blips n’ junk. 11 minutes.
Gang Gang Dance – The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners drony then wacky. 11 minutes.
Comets on Fire - Blue Tomb – A nice burner from the band I wish was still active. Blue Cathedral is an incredible album, please go buy it. The transition at 8:01 is so good. 10 minutes.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Do you love me, Mary Jane?



"Copperhead Road" - Steve Earle
The rare marijuana song about the supply side of things, "Copperhead Road" finds a Vietnam vet continuing in the tradition of his rum-running forefathers, but switching to a new crop and ominously taunting lawmen with the fact that he may have "learned a thing or two from Charlie". Also - The Wire fans will get a kick out of seeing what Walon used to look like.



"Silver Trembling Hands" - The Flaming Lips
Off the very, very underrated Embyronic, this song finds a woman escaping the paranoia of the sober world via substances known for their paranoia-inducing effects. The cause of and solution to all of life's problems?



"Beetlebum" - Blur
Probably about heroin, but I love the half-melancholy, half-blissed out vibe of this song - angry grunge guitars going against Damon Albarn's soft falsetto.



"Julie's in the Drug Squad" - The Clash
Probably about LSD, but one of my favorite songs about po-po bust paranoia and the fundamental absurdity of drug law, mainly because it doesn't get too preachy about it.



"Sunday Morning Coming Down" - Kris Kristofferson
Loneliness, drug-induced apathy, and weed as a salve. In short - a slightly more dignified version of Afroman's "Because I Got High".

Favorite 420 Jams



Imogen Heap - "Hide And Seek"
You don't just hear this song in your ears—you can feel it ringing in your sinuses as well and some especially resonant bits go all the way down into your abdomen.

Throbbing Gristle - "Hot on the Heels of Love"
When I'm high this song seems like a musical version of those little candy buttons that come on sheets of paper.

My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
Ever notice that this song is just the same verse three times? Only each time the backing vocal (the "ooh-ooh") becomes louder. It is as though you were wandering closer and closer to the throbbing heart of Loveless. It is as though Loveless sees you wince with pain as you step into it and feel the sheets of white noise, and wants to draw you into itself, perhaps against your better judgment, so it can finally embrace you with open arms.

Autechre - "Eutow"
This song is like getting a full-body massage.

Boards of Canada - "Roygbiv"
There was a whole semester in college when all I did was get high and walk around listening to this song and this song only. "Roygbiv" might be the most perfect little song I've ever heard in my life. It takes me to places I normally only access in sleep.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Happy Holidays, Stay Jazzy

It's 4:20 pm on the East Coast. Happy holidays everyone, enjoy these tracks while remaining within the bounds of local, state, and federal laws. Or, go ahead and consume America's number 1 cash crop, your call.

The Streets - "The Irony of It All"
Before Mike Skinner graduated to true fame and rapping about "prang", he was a mild-mannered Gran Turismo champ, comparing the relative societal harms of beer and weed. Silly and caricatured as it is, he's got a point.

"My name's Tim and I'm a criminal. In the eyes of society I should be in jail. For the choice of herbs I inhale. This ain't no wholesale operation, just a few eighths and some Playstations, my vocation."



Rasputin Stash - "Hit It and Pass It"
I picked up this record based on the cover alone, and this song is a jam about the characters you might encounter around the circle, the song title being what you tell 'em.

"How do you feel, when the man next to you, HOGS the smoke?"



Dr. Dre - "Xxplosive"
The Chronic 2001 could have given several tracks to this list, but I chose this one for the soulful Nate Dogg bit. (Still in mourning- Nate R.I.P.)

"Real trees....chronic leaves....no seeds...."


Fraternity of Man - "Don't Bogart That Joint"
Good etiquette.

"Don't bogart that joint, my friend. Pass it over to me."


Devin the Dude - "Doobie Ashtray"
Man, Devin the Dude really tears at the heartstrings on this one. A hard luck story with a happy ending.

"Somebody had the nerve to take the herb up out my doobie ashtray, why they do me that way?"




Finally, this one speaks for itself:

Peter Tosh - "Legalize It"

[CHOMPS] 420 Showcase [/CHOMPS]

Happy Holidays to you and yours!



I've been MIA from the SRS BZNZ scene for a minute, but I figured there's no better time than a beautiful April day for a triumphant return. Imma give you my top 5 herbally-enhanced tracks to bump on this holiday of holidays.

Luniz - "I Got 5 on It"
"I gotta take a whiz test to my P-O / I know I failed, 'cause I done smoked major weed, bro."


Die Antwoord - "Dagga Puff"
Yes, I've got a soft spot for the South African duo, but I'll be damned if this isn't one of the best 420 anthems I've ever heard. The childish, sing-song nature of this track is sure to induce squinty-eyed giggles.


Big Boi - "Fo Yo Sorrows"
I don't know what's best: the defiant hook, Big Boi's hot fire, or George Clinton's grumbling chronic rhymes. I'll take all three.


Outkast - "SpottieOttieDopaliscious"
Dayuuum, dayuuum, dayuuum, day-day-day-day-day...


BONUS Double Feature:
The Beatles - "Got to Get You into My Life"
Released in 1966 on the album Revolver, this romantic ditty was written to Mary Jane, from Paul McCartney (yes, he admitted this fact).


Earth, Wind & Fire - "Got to Get You into My Life"
In 1978, Earth, Wind & Fire brassed it up and made it sexy. I have trouble deciding which one I like better.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

420 Week: Half-Assin' It

Homies--
I'm currently too busy reveling in the remainder of my semi-anonymous viral internet movie limelight to make a proper post. But seriously, isn't this a holiday dedicated to exercising your license to chill? Imma take this one easy.

So this little bowl of Bheaties is full of some of the green party classix... plus R. Kelly and Mystikal doing what they do best with weed (i.e. singing extended metaphors about sex, and getting unnecessarily angry).

Enjoy!

--Eddie Cane



Ludacris - Blueberry Yum Yum


Bizzy Bone - Weedman


Musical Youth - Pass the Dutchie


Redman - How To Roll a Blunt


R. Kelly - Sex Weed


Mystikal - I Smell Smoke

Monday, April 18, 2011

420 Week: Madlib Megamix



Disclaimer:

I don't smoke weed. I don't do anything. But I listen to a lot of music from our good friend, Otis Jackson, Jr. I'm pretty sure the average person would get a contact high just being in the same county as the man. Anyway, here's a mix from Madlib, Quasimoto, Madvillain, Yesterday's New Quintet, Mr. Buddha, Lootpack, etc. etc., whose music I've loved for years now, not to mention the fact that listening to him and looking up samples has led my musical tastes to go in pretty unforeseen routes.

Enjoy appropriately

Sunday, April 17, 2011

SRS BZNZ 420 Showcase!


Well, Monday morning is still far away, and maybe you want a relaxing herbal denouement to another wild weekend. This week, in honor of 4/20, the BZNZmen will share with you their favorite...joints. All weed, all week. Tracks inspired by or prominently featuring reefer count, as well as songs that enhance that illicit indulgence.

So to get started, here's a quick tip on a maryjane mixtape out of Atlanta. I'll post some tracks in the coming days.

It was no sooner than I gave Wiz Khalifa's Rolling Papers some excessive praise in this space last week, that I discovered the superior DJ Burn One mixtape Joints. The tape has this great combination of slow, hazy, 80s-influenced production (think Paper Route Gangstaz?) and a wide roster of rappers coming up, including the much-hyped Freddie Gibbs. Pleasantly surprising are the two jams by Rittz, this white dude with huge hair who raps at Twista speeds. "Blue Dream" might as well be a classic rock song, with a crooning hook about a hookah lounge where it's cool to blaze. The mixtape ends with this great instrumental jam "Exotica" which combines southern style snares with a fuzzed out synth loop, and could really pass for some RJD2 or DJ Shadow-caliber ish. Great stuff,  better than Wiz in both verse and beats, and you can stream or download it free over at DJbooth.net


Rittz - Smash Potatoes by Hypetrak
P. Watts feat. Freddie Gibbs - One Day At A Time by AsTheWorldSpins.com

Saturday, April 16, 2011

HAPPY RECORD STORE DAY


Today is Record Store Day, and international celebration of your local vinyl purveyor complete with in-store performances, limited-edition releases, and warm fuzzy feelings. There's a pop-up store in my hood today only by Numero Records, and I was going to go see if I can't cop that clear vinyl edition of Tomboy...although there were only 1000 of those nationwide, and many stores opened at midnight, so I'm not holding my breath. I am a little proud to say that this now international holiday of music geekery was founded by my hometown record store, Bull Moose Music. Holla.


GO OUT AND BUY SOME MUSIC TODAY!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Panda Beaches



Panda Bear - Tomboy

Yeah, it's pretty great. I think the key joy of this album is just how hard it bumps. Not unlike Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion-transition from folk-jam freakshow pop to trunk-rattling (freakshow) dance-pop, Tomboy finds Panda moving away from the airy jangle of Person Pitch towards gut-punch visceral beats. Your favorite backpack rapper will, justifiably, probably try to rap over the breakbeat of "Slow Motion", and four-on-the-floor stomper "Afterburner" is as close to a traditional house track as Panda Bear is going to get. The less percussive numbers are often just as impressive - "Surfer's Hymn" beautifully gets at that stoned-Brian-Wilson vibe that was so great on Person Pitch and "Scheherazade" does sample-based minimalism and deeply poignant vocals better than anything James Blake has come up with. It's also thoroughly fascinating to see the kind of tones that Panda can get out of his guitar - for every instance where the guitar actually sounds like what it is, there's a few where its rhymthic strum is morphed into a sound wholly different and fascinating.

If I have a complaint - and I do, because I'm insufferable - it would be that Tomboy has an occassional tendency to succumb to No Age syndrome, which is to say that the songs here will sometimes avoid progression in favor of a kind of pointless repetition. The first minute of "Slow Motion" is as exhilarating a minute of music as has been released this year; the next three minutes of "Slow Motion" are largely indistinguishable from the first minute of "Slow Motion". It's not that I'm bagging on repetition as a musical style; it's just that on something like Person Pitch, the basic pattern of repetition was paired with a continual subtle build over sometimes 12-minute stretches - there was always the feeling of forward motion even if the album took it's time lingering on a particularly cool loop. Some of the songs here manage that kind of progression on shorter timescales - album peak "Alsatian Darn" in particular - but too often it feels more like the padding of a brilliant one-minute musical idea to full track length. Of course, those one-minute ideas are incredibly strong, so this is all a fairly minor complaint, but I think that's the key difference between this album and its classic predecessor.

Panda Bear -"Alsatian Darn" (mp3)


Panda Bear - "Afterburner" (mp3)



Dirty Beaches - Badlands

Best album cover of the year, certainly, and quite a piece of music to boot. As the Malick-inspired title suggests, Dirty Beaches (Alex Zhang Hungtai's solo make cinematic music that's largely about atmosphere, and thrillingly, it's a kind of atmosphere not often explored by other acts - call it the brooding, tormented proto-punk side of early 50s rock and roll. Hungtai gets a hell of a lot of scene-setting mileage about of simple technique, taking sounds and instrumentation that are time-worn and familiar - his Roy Orbison-esque crooning voice/yelp, a rusty electric guitar throb, and lyrical content about speedways, sweet 17s, and other Americana cliches - and twisting them into alien structures and contexts, like grinding minimalism aiming for creepy and relentless tension, or lovelorn ballads with a murderous edge. It's a concise little album but one that's tremendously effective - one of the highest compliments I can give is that Hungtai's name-checking of David Lynch and Blue Velvet is interviews is entirely apt and warranted. One could certainly throw the same objections about repetition here that I mentioned with Panda Bear, but it's more excusable here - experimental though it may be, Panda Bear in the end wants to make pop, while Dirty Beaches really just wants to get under your skin.

Dirty Beaches - "Sweet 17" (mp3)

Dirty Beaches - "True Blue" (mp3)

How should I feel about Wiz Khalifa?


He's kind of like Travis McCoy with more tattoos, more singing, and more overt weed references. Wiz benefits from some fun production on his new LP Rolling Papers, but ends up sounding like little more than a more competent version of Kid Cudi. Is that a bad thing though? The weird part about this album is despite the fact that the vocals and verses are never all that stellar, they don't ruin any songs in particular.

Well they almost do. "Hopes and Dreams" for example has a ridiculous couple lines about how Wiz could take you back to his place, or he would go to your place, but he will still be throwing money in the air and watching it fall down. "Roll Up" has one of the most stupidly saccharine hooks, with kind of silly synths. Wiz even has a dumb breakup song, titled "Get Your Shit".

But, where this album hits, the atmospherics take over and one is sort of lulled into not scrutinizing Wiz quite so closely. "The Race" has a couple clever double entendres about papers (hurr hurr), but the beat is just so soothing, that all you want to do is take a drive in the late summer sun with the windows down. "Top Floor" has that similar hazy jam mentality. "Black and Yellow" should pump you up and make you root for the Steelers, but aside from the entertaining beat, the rhymes are forgettable. Not to mention that Weezy totally killed it on "Green and Yellow", for example:

"We knocked the Eagles and the Falcons and the Bears off / Now we ’bout to cut Troy Polamalu hair off"

But for Wizzy not Weezy, the critic in me wonders what an instrumental of this album would sound like, or what a more artful MC would have done with these beats, but the homie in me just exhales, relaxes, and ignores the obvious shortcomings of an otherwise entertaining pop record.


Lil' Wayne - Green & Yellow by Hypetrak

Wiz Khalifa - "The Race"

Wiz Khalifa - "Top Floor"

Monday, April 4, 2011