Dumbin' on a Rainy Day

ANDY: Raj and I had the fortune of taking in a Star Slinger live set last weekend, which as one might imagine induced a fair amount of going dumb. The UK producer is tearing shit up with his keen ear for soul samples and layered production style, and his newest single "Dumbin'" is no exception. Not quite as esoteric as Hudson Mohawke (although HudMo's Pleasure Principle EP suggests he's got time for pop remixes too, not just crazy squeaks, although that's a topic for another post), Star Slinger loves his Curtis Mayfield, and here works with Missouri crooner Reggie B, whose hook on this track just won't stop. If you listen twice, I swear you won't be able to shake it all day. The hand drum samples and cascading harp licks give this song a certain tenderness, akin to the warm layers working on Jonti's "Hornet's Nest", but Star Slinger manages to do so without ruining the track's undeniable bangerdom.

Star Slinger's previous releases, the Vol. 1 mixtape, Rogue Cho Pa EP, and Teams vs. Star Slinger mixtape have all been great listens, and with this new single, I'm excited for more material from this cat, especially as he transitions from slammin' remixes to working with vocalists directly.

Star Slinger- Dumbin' (feat. Reggie B)

Star Slinger - Dumbin' (Feat. Reggie B) (Click buy for Free Download) by Star Slinger

LiveLoveA$AP - ASAP Rocky

RAJ: The $3 million dollar deal that ASAP Rocky reportedly signed with RCA feels like as much of a throwback as the Houston-syrup sound of his debut mixtape LiveLoveA$AP. It's the kind of blind-faith corporate adoption that isn't supposed to happen anymore¹, since labels now can just wait for hustling-for-free internet rappers to distinguish themselves first before stepping in (Drake had two mixtapes out before he was signed - Rocky had two singles).

If anything can explain all this, it's that label A&R executives may have sensed a kindred spirit in Rocky, who arguably is more skilled as a talent scout than as a rapper. Rocky isn't a bad rapper by any means - he has a relaxed charisma and a dazzling ability to bounce between straightforward flows and sing-songy double-time cadences - but he is somewhat bland lyrically. ASAP's only unique lyrical ambition beyond obligatory (and here not particularly witty) drug/girl/drugged girl talk is trying to be more foppish than Kanye - his self-declared nickname is "that pretty mothafucka" and he brags that the "only thing bigger than my ego is my mirror".

But LiveLoveA$AP is front-to-back fire as a beat collection, which is remarkable considering that most of the producers here are relative unknowns (no one's going to be particularly surprised that the Clams Casino beats are great, although ASAP is the rare rapper who doesn't sound completely overwhelmed by that kind of dense backing track). Beautiful Lou's track "Trilla" is too perfect as a Dirty South UGK homage, Spaceghostpurrp's "Keep it G" manages to make a trunk-rattler out of smooth jazz, and Lyle's "Brand New Guy" is the kind of aggressive, hallucinogenic sound that would greatly please Salem. There's a polished, consistent aesthetic here that you rarely find in rap albums period, let alone on career rap debuts, and it bodes well for whatever Rocky ends up doing in the big leagues.

¹There is a case to be made that it didn't - the only person to have reported that figure is Rocky himself, and Rocky has proven to be A) a guy who is remarkably canny at knowing how to get bloggers talking and B) a guy who is pretty consistently stoned.

ANDY: I'd agree with Raj that Rocky's lyrics themselves aren't spectacular, it's his ability to deftly switch up the rhythms of his flows that are his main strength, especially when paired with such monolithic Clams Casino beats. The switch-up on tape opener "Palace" is a perfect example, where Rocky admits his syrup-influenced love for Houston micro-genre Screw Music, then issues a rapidfire verse that pairs nicely with Clams's skittering snares, right as we are tiring of his slower rhymes. "Leaf" is another spot where Rocky flaunts his ability to skip around Clams's droning background beat.

On the back half of the tape, DJ Burn One (featured in the SRS 420 Showcase) also delivers a couple slick beats, most notably on "Roll One Up", allowing for a little more lucidity than Clams's megafuzz. At the end of the day Rocky's drug-addled rhymes are paired with such undeniably strong production that this mixtape might sneak on to some 2011 best-of lists.



P.S. I am no fan of Drake, and wouldn't usually think to compare an artist like ASAP Rocky with him (internet beginnings aside). But I wonder if Rocky's syrup tinged rhymes would have made a better guest verse than Drake's on the stellar mixtape that The Weeknd dropped a few months back. Seems to me The Weeknd's penchant for drugs and sex wouldn't appeal to a squeaky clean aww-shucks-I'm famous rapper like Drake. Jussayin', Rocky should call The Weeknd up for a collabo, I'd listen to that shit.

Oldies But Goodies: The Wrens

Because all the BZNZmen live, or have lived, in NJ



ANDREW: I was walking somewhere a couple weeks back, and shuffle played me a track I hadn't heard in years. It was in the salad days of my music fandom in 2003, when I had only just discovered the thrill of digging through stacks of used CDs at Bull Moose Records when The Wrens released their third album Meadowlands. I was previously unaware of their 90s indie-cred, and their first two albums, but figured it was worth a spin. The Wrens delivered a crisp slice of indie melancholy, that sounded just right to my angsty ears. Somehow this record managed to avoid the sarcasm of previous era contemporaries like Stephen Malkmus, and the awful saccharine stylings of early 2000s dudes like Ben Gibbard. Meadowlands felt to me then as it does now to be a tremendously earnest and well-balanced record, and when I heard it for the first time in years it was refreshing. Not beholden to any microgenres or subtrends, not leaked on a blog or analyzed on Twitter, but chock-full of really solid songwritin' and guitarin' and such. Great for a fall day. Next year The Wrens are supposed to release a follow up to Meadowlands, putting them firmly on that one album every seven to eight years plan. I can only hope when I fire that album up on my subcutaneous iPod- augmented reality viewer in 2020 that it sounds just as refreshing.

The Wrens - "She Sends Kisses"


The Wrens - "This Boy Is Exhausted"

SRS TRAX: Danny Brown - "30"

Yeah, I know it came out two months ago, shut up.



RAJ: Danny Brown has been getting lumped in with Odd Future a lot as just another shock rapper, mostly by people who haven't listened to a lot of Danny Brown. It's not that Brown isn't very actively trying to shock people (on "Pac Blood": "Rhymes that'll make the Pope wanna get his dick sucked/Had Virgin Mary doing lines in the pickup"¹), but there's a purpose to his shocks that goes beyond, say, Tyler the Creator's motivation of scaring old people². Much of Brown's album XXX is a harrowing personal story about past poverty and present addiction - some anarchic, boundary-breaking glee makes for a nice counterpoint to the dour stuff. It's the reason why Trainspotting is a better movie than Requiem for a Dream - there's a human vitality (a lust for life?) that's always present instead of solely a parade of torment and degradation.

And it's kind of ground-breaking that the back half of XXX approaches a sort of rap Trainspotting, because in a genre so obsessed with the drug trade, nothing like a junkie-eye view of street life really exists. The closest thing to that might be Lil Wayne in the depths of his syrup days³, and he was never exactly lucid about it (or anything, for that matter) - usually, you just have the obligatory album track where the drug dealer half-heartedly reflects on the consequences of his actions. So it hits hard when Brown raps about stealing scrap metal from abandoned houses from drug money ("Scrap or Die").

And then we get to "30", the album closer and one of the most bizarrely brilliant rap songs of the year. The song starts out as a mess, with bleating horns and plucked bass stuttering in the general vicinity of the actual beat. But Brown seems intent on holding the song together through the force of his conviction alone - he's screaming by the time the backing track starts to fall in line. That happens just as off-color jokes start giving way to a painful personal history and the horror of drugs haunting even his current success. In the last few lines of the song/album, we find out that Brown is 30 years old, and that the album title is as layered as the album proper - a vulgar come-on masking a sober reality in Roman numerals, a rapper reflecting on the experience of age in a genre where rappers avoiding admitting being older than 22. It carries weight - it's the kind of thing that'll probably stick with you after Wolf Gang's latest rape joke has passed by.

(9)

¹ Nothing wrong with this when it's as inspired as this track is - "Pac Blood" gets the same score.

² Actual Tyler tweet: "I Want To Scare The Fuck Out Of Old White People That Live In Middle Fucking America."

³ I guess Eminem's Relapse, too? I was omitting it since it, uh, sucks. Am I forgetting anything?

BACK in BZNZ: King Krule

It's Monday, and we're back in BZNZ.

So it has been a little while, and some have even questioned if we gents had gone out of BZNZ entirely. No more! There has been such an overwhelming quantity of jams echoing around the empty cavity between my ears over the course of the last few months that I haven't taken the time to sit down and process 'em BZNZlike. BZNZmen have gone to and reported on music festivals (Raj with the reporting, Jesse and I in tow), seen album of the year contenders perform live (Shabazz Palaces, Gang Gang Dance, and Panda Bear) and even created some SRSly original works (my man TK). But none of it has transpired in this space, dominating the ever more expedient Bookface. I understand these transgressions and ask that the 10-12 people who bother to read the motley assortment of opinions on this blog forgive us. I'll probably stop using this exclusively as a place to beef with Raj.

Several months I wrote about the promising debut efforts of a couple of UK blokes, and it would appear King Krule is a continuation of the trend. He's a fucking 17-year-old who looks like Tintin but sounds like Billy Bragg got drunk with Tom Waits. It's exactly right. The alarmingly deep voice for the barely pubescent Archy Marshall is truly surprising given that he looks like this (thanks, p4k):

James Blake's EPs and albums were critical darlings some months back. Jamie Woon released an album that sort of failed to capitalize on the excitement of his advance single "Night Air". And the world awaits any new material from the much hyped and Thom Yorke-approved Jai Paul. King Krule is right on time with an EP due next week. It's still early to tell anything definitive, but the melancholy Anglo-crooning on "The Noose of Jah City" certainly piques the curiosity. Maybe he can open for Waits if he tours for the new LP, who knows. Till then, this one's on repeat.


King Krule - The Noose of Jah City by The Vinyl District

SRS JAMZ: Mayer Hawthorne - "Don't Turn The Lights On" (Chromeo Cover)

Perhaps a new feature where review tracks that qualify as jams.

What's a jam?

Jam - (n.) SLANG - often preceded by BONER, a jam is a track that enhances or encourages the human sex act





ANDY: All you need is to take a sassy disco burner and slow it the fuck down and you have the baby makin'est tune in recent memory. There are some Weeknd cuts that qualify, another recent obsession of mine, but this jam is as delightfully surprising as Mayer Hawthorne's remix of Snoop Dogg's "Gangsta Luv".

The leap is perhaps more natural from hip hop to r & b, but in both cases Hawthorne's attention to detail and crisp Motown renditions arguably outshine the original. I mean Chromeo's lyrics weren't meant for a dancefloor, they were CLEARLY made for a bedroom, and is not a crisp soul man is clearly more "gangsta" than the auto-tuned Mr. Dream? In both cases, it's as if Mayer Hawthorne gently reminds the original artists of the supremacy of his preferred genre, but with "Don't Turn The Lights On" he completely reimagines the song rather than just switching production styles. Top notch. (8.5)


Mayer Hawthorne - Don't Turn The Lights On (Chromeo Cover) by WHATZOOEVER

B.Lewis - Plug EP

Hey everyone here's an EP from this dude B.Lewis that's available for free on his bandcamp of more glitched out beats that I find very, very delightful! Not canned like soup but rather free like a man liberated from captivity in a dark, murky cell!

SNAG IT NOW, DINGUS

SRS TRAX: "Martians vs. Goblins" - Game (Feat. Lil Wayne and Tyler, the Creator)

Don't be a halloweenie


"Martians vs Goblins" - Game (feat. Lil Wayne and Tyler, the Creator) - (3.75)

ANDY: So I'll be honest, I've never really thought much of The Game. I attribute that mostly to ignorance, but after 50 cut him loose, his stock really fell, and I didn't make an effort to pay attention. But I guess when you're in Game's seat, you want to rebuild the hype by collaborating with the hypinest mc out there, OFWGKTA's Tyler the Creator.

With an appropriately spooky/cheesy beat and a Weezy hook barely long enough to qualify for a featured credit, Game embarks on the track with his usual gangster-osity, making sure to mention the Bloods and Crips (This shit is called the Red Album, after all), and threatening to kill Lil B. He then takes a prompt left turn to mention Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sega Genesis, and fucking DC Comics. For real? Who's the gangster here and who's the adolescent rapper that tumblr fathered?

Tyler, for his part, delivers an uninspired and rhythmically lopsided verse, rehashing his threats against Bruno Mars, and mentioning running from the police on cheetah-back Harold and Kumar-style. Sigh. He gets in one last dig about the Log Cabin Republicans and leaves on a months-stale Lebron James joke.

When Game's back, it's time to compare Erykah Badu's vagina to wonton soup, make yet more Lebron jokes (although points for mentioning Delonte West), and back to the gangster ish. Ultimately, two guys who are posturing themselves as scary come off sounding more immature than actually intimidating. (4.5)

RAJ:
- Lil Wayne's "appearance" here isn't quite as bad an example of featured artist abuse as Kanye featuring actual dead people, but it's pretty close!

- It's bad enough that Tyler verses are the rap equivalent of Family Guy episodes now (empty but outra-a-a-a-geous shock value + forgettable cultural reference = genius!), but now he's got The Game pulling the same shtick? Whatever limited value this track has now is going to deflate right alongside the reputations of Lil B and Bruno Mars.

- Game apparently says that the R.E.D. of R.E.D. Album stands for Re-Dedication, which is now officially the lamest "No really, this isn't about gangs" excuse I've heard.
(3)

Listen Here

On Watch the Throne

- Watch the Throne: Starring Kanye West as himself and a luxury goods catalog as Jay-Z.

- Admittedly, Jay-Z's current "Selected Readings from My Credit Card Statement" rap style is strongly preferable to the cranky old man pathetically whinging about being "forever young" on The Blueprint 3, but it's still far from being any good. For one thing, the only people who will get half these brand-name references probably scoff at hip-hop as too bourgeois on their way to the opera anyway. It's worth noting that Jay's only good verse on the album name-checks nothing classier than Ballantine Ale and seed-heavy marijuana - "The Joy" comes from a place of heartfelt memory and actual connection to humanity, while the rest of his verses seem like tossed-off telegrams from some lonely Xanadu.

- Of course, it's not like you'd call Kanye relatable exactly, but when he goes on about his own obscene indulgence, he's always interesting - he's uniquely vivid ("Coke on her black skin make a stripe like a zebra/I call that jungle fever") or goofily clever ("Prince William ain't do it right if you ask me/Cuz if I was him I would have married Kate and Ashley") or just unpredictable in some way, which rarely happens with Jay here. Except for "New Day", Ye's verses here have him in not-trying-that-hard silly punchline mode, as opposed to Dark Twisted Fantasy's more reflective, thoughtful mode, but it mostly works in this context.

- That context is a pretty lightweight collection of beats, although a few are brilliant (the prog-rock stomp of "No Church in the Wild", RZA's shockingly successful autotuning of Nina Simone on "New Day"). A few of these suffer from that Blueprint 3 problem of wanting to be "futuristic", which translates in practice to lame retreads of last year's dance music model (dubstep samples are a bad idea as it is, but sampling Flux Pavilion only amplifies the problem). Judging from the beats Kanye actually made for himself, you can blame this one on Jay-Z entirely. When is he going to figure out that the future of hip-hop is going to be something much weirder than whatever music played at the club last night?

- This is not going to be good for Frank Ocean's career. It doesn't matter how much good will Frank gets out of his decent album-opening hook and his much-better-than-decent debut album - a large proportion of mainstream listeners will now remember him as that goofy guy who sang the insanely corny hook about the baby Jesus on "Made in America".

- "Lift Off" strikes me as one of the worst transparent stabs at a radio single I've ever heard. It's not just that Beyonce's hook is kind of bland - it's that with repetition of the hook alone she seems to sing twice as many words as the actual rappers on the track rap combined. Did they forget to finish this track? Was Bey going to make Jay sleep on the couch if anyone dared to upstage her mediocre contribution?

- Not to get all Upper East Side blue blood on him, but Jay's constant art-world namedropping (Basquiat! Rothko! A thousand goddamned mentions of the MOMA!) is so fucking nouveau-riche, isn't it?

- Andy was telling me that the terrible things about this album can be explained by thinking of the whole thing as a big old tongue-in-cheek Trapped-in-the-Closet self-parody. If you're willing to be that generous, that's not a terrible way to look at it, but if it's all a joke, I wish it was a funnier one!

SRS TRAX: Das Racist - "Michael Jackson"

Bruce Springsteen! Four Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars! MC Hammer! Twelve dollars and thirty cents!






Das Racist - "Michael Jackson" (8.5)

RAJ: #1: The few active detractors of Das Racist that I've heard take issue with the duo's hipper-than-thou bored-stoner flow, but with "Michael Jackson", that charge is even more iffy, because Heems is downright theatrical with his Jadakiss-in-two-decades raspy voice (Kool A-D even tries out this squeaky Weezy thing in the last verse).

#2: There's something pretty zen about the way that hook distills the vast majority of rap braggadocio (fame, money, and the demand that aforementioned fame and money be acknowledged) into nine words.

#3: If other rappers learn nothing from Das Racist, they should at least get back to Bollywood-sampling beats again, like the stuff Timbaland made in his golden age.

#4: The third verse here is a fun parody of rap clique circle-jerks, but it's interesting to see how straight these guys are playing their rapper roles otherwise - Heems' excellent opening shit-talk verse is as non-jokey as he's ever been. That is, until his last lines and the song's peak - screaming out "I'm fucking great at rapping!" could be the logical extension of Waka-Flocka-Flame-esque bluntness, but it also scans as giddily sincere. That really gets to the heart of what is so great about these guys - the parody is clever, but the deep love of what they're parodying is why it doesn't just seem like snotty hipsters taking shots at hip-hop.

#5: Is Janet Jackson really 10,000 times less valuable than Michael Jackson?

#6: Anyone want to take a crack at explaining that 9/11-y cover art? Because I'm at a loss.
(8.5)

August Mudmix

Posts have been few and far between these days, but here's a mix for you to sink your teeth into. This one is strictly non-electronic. Sort of a shame, because that new Hudson Mohawke EP is just waiting to be blasted, but I decided to just go back in time for these tunes. Basically all oldies, but two newer ones (one's a cover and the other sounds old). Enjoy.

Care of Cell 44 - The Zombies
You Monopolise Me - The Ogyatanaa Show Band
Eerie Body - Radiator Girls
A Song For You - Gram Parsons
Yes, My Goodness Yes - Velma Perkins
If I Stay Too Long - Thee Oh Sees
Tramp - Otis Redding & Carla Thomas
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Put Out The Fire - The Mystiques
遇 - 劉文正

download

Wayback Machine: Comets on Fire - Bong Voyage [2004]

I think I've mentioned Comets on Fire before. Every time I listen to Blue Cathedral or Field Recordings From The Sun, I simultaneously have my mind blown and get in a little slump, the latter due to the band's unofficial permanent hiatus. Ben Chasny's still going strong with Six Organs of Admittance, Ethan Miller was doing the Howlin Rain jam for a bit, but I haven't followed it much, but when these Bay Area dudes got together, the joyful noise was too good, too perfect. I remember around 2006 reading about Bong Voyage, a compilation live album, and really wanting to hear it. I've never been much of a torrent user, and mediafire wasn't as easy to access, so it wasn't until earlier today that this album finally popped back up on my radar, and is currently bringing me into a nice, blissful comfort. It's bringing me back to their show I went to during a hurricane at the Black Cat in DC the day before I left for college in 2006. The most spiritual experience I've ever had at a musical performance; I went crazy. The echoplex, the dueling guitars, the thumping bass, it's exactly what psychedelic rock should be. Noisy. Long hairy & Beardy. Indecipherable lyrics. And the lo-fi quality of the recording doesn't take away from the grandeur. And we got a Ben Chasny Eastern-influenced acoustic jam in the middle of it. Snag it if this is what you're into.

Mediafire

Punk Ain't Dead: Fucked Up's "David Comes to Life"

About a month ago, Canadian hardcore/punk band Fucked Up released their third full-length album David Comes To Life while I was too busy working crazy hours to notice or care. I mean, can you blame me? The album definitely falls into the category of hardcore, which is a genre mostly oppressively loud and repetitive, and generally I'd be down with just about anything else. But when I finally listened to the album biking home the long way to my apartment in Bed-Stuy, the music, colliding with the wind coming off the river and the potholes in the pavement finally started to make sense.

The first thing that you notice is that this album is unapologetically loud and full of raw youthful energy. Pounding drums and the lion's roar of Father Damian/Pink Eyes' voice let you know immediately what musical territory you've entered for the next 78 minutes. Simple distorted riffs and tones carry most of the album and are mostly reminiscent of The Who overlaid with Hot Water Music, but Fucked Up manages to push these trite melodies forward with the force of sheer willpower and enthusiasm (especially on tracks like "Ship of Fools" and "Running on Nothing"). Actually, the whole album feels like it's being violently shoved up a hill by a gang of grinning lunatics only to be released on free wheels all the way back down (perfect for biking over bridges).

But as I carried David with me through the streets of Williamsburg, noticing that there was not a silly moustache in sight, something else hit me: There is nothing ironic about this album. It's a four-part rock opera about a boy named David professing his tortured love for a girl named Veronica (spoiler alert: she DIES). It's a love story based on protest music. It's hardcore for chrissakes. To do all of these things at a time when even the lamest of the cool kids have turned their noses up at self-serious punk music (and let's be real here: Green Day's American Idiot pretty severely killed off most of punk's appeal as a genre while at the same time eliciting groans whenever the words "rock" and "opera" were used in the same sentence) requires the kind of raw energy that only Fucked Up seems to have these days. The result is a highly respectable album that may yet start a reawakening of heady punk within the mainstream (David Comes To Life ranked 12th a few weeks ago on the Billboard "Tastemaker Albums."). Personally, I've been sick of this New York version of standing-around-at-concerts-with-your-arms-folded bullshit for a while. I'm ready to thrash again.

Fucked Up - Turn The Season

Fucked Up - Running on Nothing

Fucked Up - Ship of Fools

"Digital Lows" Cities Aviv

Did we review this one yet? I don't even remember anymore. Here's to lazy summer postings and Mermaid Parades! Check out theis guyz and theyr almbum on bandcamp.

July Mudmix

to celebrate freedom:

download

nicolas jaar - what my last girl put me through
frank zappa - any way the wind blows
kelis - milkshake (shlohmo remix)
heRobust - grief case (star slinger wwhrd remix)
young circles - dreams
devonwho - fedoraworm (dibiase's microwave flip)
odb v. king tubby - dubbing it raw
noel davy - under me fat thing [version]
pink reason - holding on
kurt weisman - rainbow blues

Shit why did I sleep on Gayngs so long?

I'm way late on this but I'm really diggin' 2010's Relayted. One might expect a 25 member supergroup to be all over the map, but somehow the seemingly inevitable eclecticism is unpredictably reined in under the umbrella of soft-rock. I mean, at some points, one might imagine the sexy sax man making his appearance, while at others the album dips into experimental, prog, or even blues territory. So maybe there's a little something for everyone? It's mostly colored in shades that fans of Air or James Blake would like, but there are some surprises like "Faded High", or "False Bottom".

In the ultra-fast world of the internet music reviews, it is of the utmost importance to be timely and ahead of the new hotness. Us BZNZmen being an obvious exception, clearly I slept on this album for over a year, and only got around to checking it out when the dudes at My Other Computer Is A Sunset posted about it back in April. Maybe the internet isn't fast so much as it is regurgitative, but don't sleep on Gayngs.

Speaking of regurgitation, keep an eye out for a new feature 'round SRS BZNZ. We're gonna ask our BZNZmen to drop some negocios in the form of their favorite albums by genre. All the oldies but goodies, the albums we believe belong firmly in the canon. Check it out this week, maybe while you bayng some Gayngs.

Gayngs - The Gaudy Side of Town by rslblog.com

Gayngs - Cry by albums

Gayngs - Faded High by sxeseis

SRS TRAX: "Daylight" - Thundercat

Life plan: Move to Los Angeles. Feed my brain.


Thundercat - Daylight by Hypetrak

Thundercat - "Daylight" (8.5)

ANDY: BRAINFEEDER GETS IT SO WET. The Golden Age of the Apocalypse, The highly anticipated debut LP from Thundercat (who contributed to Flying Lotus's excellent Cosmogramma last year), features FlyLo's production, and jams like "Daylight". It's electronica that is oh-so-jazzy. My mind is open, hombre. Let the daylight shine in. I wonder when Brainfeeder will stop killin' the game? (8.5)

SRS TRAX: "Break Inside" - Ford & Lopatin

Take hits from the Eighties (yeah yeah) Do it sound so crazy (yeah yeah)

Ford & Lopatin - "Break Inside" (6.75)

ANDY: Back when SRS BZNZ started up last October, one of the first reviews was hyping up the Games EP That We Can Play, and by now, the group has changed their name and their sound. Channel Pressure, the debut LP from the newly renamed Ford & Lopatin, is still steeped in that 80s new wave synthyness, at times playing the Mr. Mister card heavily, and at times rocking rhythms you swear you heard New Order do better. Hell the cover is straight out of Weird Science. Overall it's a smooth listen though, with some unexpected high points. "Break Inside" makes for a smooth, shimmering, R&B-inspired jam nestled in the 80s nostalgia, that suggests Ford & Lopatin can also hang with the James Blakes of today. (7.5)

RAJ: On the one hand, it's pretty well-made chillwave. On the other hand, it's chillwave. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and continue being nostalgic about Roy Orbison. (6)

June Mudmix

hello from santa monica.

download

fLako - Shake it Harder
Samiyam - Cushion
Bardo Pond - Just Once
Tokimonsta - Moving Forward
Pavement - Box Elder
Thundercat - For Love I Come
Silver Jews - Black And Brown Blues
Long Arm - Double Bass In Love
Flying Burrito Brothers - Dark End Of The Street
John Coltrane - Say It (Over and Over Again)
Paul McCartney - Ram On
(39:06)

R.I.P. Gil Scott-Heron

One of my true heroes of music has passed away. Glad I was able to see him perform live a couple years ago. Wherever you are now, Gil, I hope you're doing well.

Gil Scott-Heron - Back Home


Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey on the Moon


Gil Scott-Heron - Lady Day and John Coltrane