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Early last year we were impressed by the sample-heavy swag of Action Bronson’s debut, Dr. Lecter (we were also pretty stoked with the Bon Appetite mixtape). The effort was enough to land the former chef on our list of favorite new hip-hoppers (we didn’t actually write that up… but we wish we had… Danny Brown and Death Grips would have been on that list, too). However, as 2011 rolled on, we were underwhelmed by the one-offs (“Cliff Notes”, “Muslim Wedding”) and collaborations (with Ghostface Killah, Apathy and half-a-dozen others). Not disappointed. But underwhelmed compared to the spark we heard on Dr. Lecter.
Actually, we were a little disappointed with a single, “Blue Chips” that we later learned was the title track from Bronson’s forthcoming mixtape. Not a good sign. But Blue Chips is here. And there was absolutely no need to worry. This mixtape killer (free download). |
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4.5 Archive
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Himanshu – Nehru Jackets – Album Review
– 03/04/2012Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Best New Albums, Downloads, Featured, Hip-Hop, Songs
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Das Racist emcee Himanshu (aka Heems) slowly emerged over 2011as the group’s MVP with solo contributions to buzz-happy mixtapes by Small Black, Lushlife and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire. He also dropped several rad cuts on his own, “Womyn”, “I Want It Bad”, “Alien Gonzalez”, “Computers” and (Strokes cover) “NYC Cops” among them.
To start off 2012, Heems combined those cuts with a bunch of other odds, ends and bad ass beats to form the Nehru Jackets mixtape (free download). It’s a lush, VHS-hazed excursion filled with samples lifted from Indian pop culture, booming hip-hop beats, glitchy loops and digitized textures. The wonderfully patchy mess is narrated by our reluctant hero, Heems, and his stoned, wandering flow that masterfully straddles the line between nonsense stream-of-conscious and smart, revealing wordplay. When we first saw the tracklist for Nehru Jackets, we were concerned the previously released material was going to end up being the best material. But that’s not the case. “You Have to Ride the Wave (f. Danny Brown and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire)” is probably the best song here. New cuts “What Do I Do When I’m Alone”, “Yo What’s Good New York (f. Action Bronson, Lakutis, Kool AD)” and “Jason Bourne” are pretty dope, too. |
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Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – Blood Lust – Album Review
– 01/15/2012Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Best New Albums, Featured, Rock
Stream “I’ll Cut You Down” from Blood Lust
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With an obsession for dark mysticism and grainy proto-metal, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats’ second album, Blood Lust, plays like a droning, stoned version of early Black Sabbath. It’s a totally bad ass trip to the edge of an ancient religion with a coven of faceless, hovering witches. Song structures across Blood Lust are direct, riffs are pulled from a mythic black war chest and drums are applied with strategic simplicity as psychedelic solos and ultraviolet vocals brood overhead.Although many songs on Blood Lustare extended jams revolving around bluesy, driving riffs (“Deaths Door”, “13 Candles”), Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats do a good job of breaking up the album with sharp rhythmic changes (“I’m Here to Kill You”, “Ritual Knife”) and occasional dynamics (“Curse in the Trees”). The acoustic cut that closes the album is pretty cool, though it would have been pretty rad if they moved it to the middle.Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats have done an extraordinary job of capturing that moment in rock history when the blues took a turn for the savage under the direction of Black Sabbath. No, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats aren’t breaking any new ground, but they’re approaching the past with such vital conviction that we can’t seem to get enough of Blood Lust.
Standout Tracks: “I’ll Cut You Down”, “13 Candles”, “Curse in the Trees”, “Ritual Knife” |
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St. Vincent – Strange Mercy – album review
– 09/30/2011Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Best New Albums, Featured
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St Vincent’s third LP, Strange Mercy, is a slightly off-center, gently warped exploration of the place where rock, pop and noir cinema meet. It’s a weird place where unsettling imagery floats above catchy songs crossed with odd, beautiful melody. But it’s an inspiring place where sweeping nostalgia blends with quirky experimentation. And it’s a place that St. Vincent has finally described to us in brilliant, crystal-clear HD on Strange Mercy.Strange Mercy is front-loaded with the songs that are gonna stick. “Cruel” and “Surgeon” are about as close to straight-up pop song as St Vincent is going to write. But don’t take that the wrong way. Despite their easy rhythms and catchy melody, “Cruel” and ” are some abrasive noises and shadowy textures that keep things fresh. Holding down the middle of the LP are two songs, “Strange Mercy” and “Neutered Fruit” that won’t immediately grab you, but will end up stuck in your head after a couple of spins. Their beauty pales a bit in comparison to the bold pacing of Strange Mercy’s opening act, but both are stocked with graceful hooks.
Deep into Strange Mercy’s closing act, the songs pass quickly without leaving much of an impression. But again, these songs are competing with a powerful opening half, so they can be forgiven. However, you may not forgive yourself if you tap out before the end. Strange Mercy closes on a strong note with the melancholy stomp of “Year of the Tiger”. Standout Tracks: “Cruel”, “Year of the Tiger”, “Surgeon” More St. Vincent |
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Blu – NoYork! – album review
– 09/26/2011Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Best New Albums, Featured, Hip-Hop
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Hyper-synthesized, chaotic and crackling with digital sparks, the cosmic psychedelia of Blu’s major label debut, NoYork!, is an incredibly daring hip-hop statement. At a point in his career when most MCs would enlist A-list Top-40 producers, the San Pedro-born rapper dug deep into LA’s seething underground beat scene to recruit some of its most elite operatives: Flying Lotus, Madlib, Exile, Daedalus and Samiyam among others.Sure, these producers have worked with MCs before, but to have them all in one place, on a single hip-hop LP, is pretty bold. And totally bad ass. Combined, these fringe beat-slingers create a futuristic urban soundscape of broken rhythms, glitchy organic samples and sunny, dystopian synth melody. It’s an appropriate backdrop for Blu as he raps about coming up and slashing out a living in LA across NoYork!’s seventeen tracks.
Like the city of LA, NoYork! is a place where desperate nostalgia runs headlong into an urgent drive to shape the future. And the resulting output, of course, can be hard to immediately grasp. But we like that. It’s a distant cry from the familiar pacing, polished clarity and immediate (but fleeting) comfort of Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter IV or Jay-Z and Kanye’s Watch the Throne. You’re not going to hear many familiar voices on NoYork! either. Guest MCs and vocalists include the somewhat familiar (UGod, Edan, Co$$, Pac Div, Sa-Ra Cre4ative Partners), but mostly the unfamiliar (Jack Davey, Nola Darling, Jim Etta Rose, Donel Smokes, Definite Mass, Dubble Oh and the list could go on for a while). It’s as if [gasp] Blu picked his collaborators based on A) how much he digs their flow and B) how well they compliment his style (as opposed to selecting names based on their chances to boost record sales). As NoYork! cruises along, it slowly adopts a more organic, jazz-funk hip-hop texture (“Down to Earth”, “My Sunshine”), but we’re pretty sure most hip-hop fans would have checked out long before this side of the LP pulls into focus. And we’re not sure many underground electronica fans would stick around past the first couple of cuts on NoYork!, which leaves us to wonder who the audience is for this killer LP. Well, for one, if you’re still reading this review, NoYork! is probably a good place for you to hang out. But the rest of NoYork!’s fans are probably the hip-hop and electronica nerds of the future digging through digital record bins covered with binary dust for the lost big thing. And NoYork!, my friends, is a pretty big thing that won’t get half the attention it deserves in the present tense. Standout Tracks: “Never Be the Same”, “Ronald Morgan”, “Soupa”, “Down to Earth” More Blu |
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Women – Public Strain – Album Review
– 02/25/2011Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Rock
Stream “Locust Valley” from Public Strain
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Women’s Public Strain is an abrasive, noisy record full of awkward melodies, fragile riffs, uncomfortable pauses full of white noise and lazy vocals. The more I think about this record, the more I analyze it, the more I’m surprised at how much I love it.
Public Strain is smeared with chaos, loneliness and cynicism, but it’s punctuated with beautiful melody (“Penal Colony”), smart rhythms (“China Steps”) and fresh dynamics (“Drag Open”). It’s a killer mix. The only problem is, it’s hard to appreciate in small doses. You need to listen to the whole album to really dig what’s happening. And that’s tough in the twitter/YouTube-TMZ era. There’s a lot of Sonic Youth on Public Strain (especially on “Heat Distraction” and “Locust Valley”), occasionally you’ll hear flourishes of Deerhunter (“Venice Lockjaw”) and through it all, there’s a frayed tone reminiscent of White Light / White Heat-era Velvet Underground. No, these aren’t influences that are easy on the ear. And they’re certainly not influences that appeal to the NPR or Starbucks crowd, so if you like what you hear on All Songs Considered and you enjoy gingerbread lattes, Public Strain isn’t the type of greatness that will appeal to you. Even if you like the noisier, messier arts, Public Strain can be tough to engage. The album’s opener, “Can’t You See” is a little sleepy, and the middle songs (especially “Bells”) wear at your patience. But hang in there, the album’s closing act (the last four songs) are simply brilliant. Standout Tracks: “Locust Valley”, “Heat Distraction”, “Venice Lockjaw” Around the web
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Greenhornes – **** – Album Review
– 01/07/2011Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Rock
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The Greenhornes sound a lot like [pick your favorite three from this list: The Kinks, Yardbirds, MC5, Rolling Stones, Small Faces, Pretty Things]. They always have. And that hasn’t changed on their latest LP, “****”. But what’s so killer about this album is the way the Greenhornes deliver such familiar sounds with incredible swagger, grit and passion. They play with such confidence, you almost forget there were bands that played this music forty years ago.
The band also does a masterful job of shifting styles. From straight-up rockers (“Need Your Love”, “Underestimator”) to radio-ready singles (“Saying Goodbye”, “Left the World Behind”) and ballads (“My Sparrow” and “Hard to Find”), it’s hard to get bored or dwell too much on how familiar the album sounds. Some of the best accents come later in the album when the band shifts to less-familiar, classic rock textures (see “Go Tell Henry”, “Jacob’s Ladder”). Standout tracks Around the web
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yU – Before Taxes – Album Review
– 12/18/2010Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Hip-Hop
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You don’t hear much about Washington D.C. hip-hop, but the underground scene is getting some attention these days thanks to the rap collective Diamond District and their MVP, yU. On his solo debut, “Before Taxes”, yU delivers taught rhymes with a velvet flow over 70s R+B textures and a range of stripped-down beats.
Sure, some of the samples (and sample techniques) ring familiar, but they mesh exceptionally with yU’s flow and the varied rhythms on Before Taxes. The end result is like looking at a mosaic made of pieces from different jigsaw puzzles that somehow fit together perfectly. In his lyrics, yU talks about resisting the temptation to sell out, bringing hip-hop back to its roots and staying true to instinct and experimentation. It’s not about girls, guns or success. It’s not the type of hip-hop you’re used to hearing on the radio. It’s more organic, vital and clever than that. Before taxes is one of the best hip-hop debuts we’ve heard in years. Standout tracks Around the web
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Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma – Album Review
– 12/17/2010Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews
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Flying Lotus’ “Cosmogramma” isn’t an easy album to listen to. It shifts abruptly from song-to-song, few of which seem to resemble each other, except in the way each is layered with jagged noises tethered by unnatural rhythms and busy bass lines. As Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison) told the BBC, this is his jazz album.
All the noise and spacey textures on Cosmogramma combine to create a fresh, otherworldly experience. And it’s something the Downcast is obsessed with. But it’s not likely that many listeners will give this a third or fourth listen. While there are some easy-to-fall-in-love with, catchier tracks here, the album could have used a couple more if Ellison wanted to connect with a wider base. But I’m not sure he cares. He’s not trying to win friends. He’s busty reinventing the future. In the years to come, you’ll be hearing a lot of references to electronic acts showing moments on their albums, or releasing songs, that resemble Cosmogramma-era Flying Lotus. From that perspective it’s important for the music-obsessed to familiarize themselves with the abrasive genius that is Cosmogramma, but for most of you we recommend passing on the whole album and seeking out some standout tracks. Standout Tracks
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Tame Impala – Innerspeaker – Album Review
– 12/09/2010Posted in: 4.5, Album Reviews, Rock
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Imagine the Beatles had lasted to make another record. Imagine they wanted to meld the raw power of garage-rock acts ranging from the Pretty Things to MC5 with a heavy dose of their own psychedelic sensibilities and serve it in a booming, arena-rock package. If such a thing had happened, it would sound a lot like Tame Impala’s “Innerspeaker”.
What’s most surprising about Tame Impala’s debut LP is that, for something so short on new ideas, it’s incredibly fresh. Maybe it’s the utter force and urgency that they deliver with. Maybe it’s the genuine curiosity, the obsession, for decoding the secrets of their sonic idols. That kind of passion is contagious. My only complaint is the density of Innerspeaker. There’s not much room to breath on this album, which will send many listeners back to the surface for air. But for fans of late-60s psychedelia, British invasion rock and, more recently, psych rockers like Dungen, the Black Angels and Darker My Love, Tame Impala’s “Innerspeaker” is a masterpiece. Standout Tracks Around the web
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