What I'm Listening To/Writing About

I've been listening to a mountain of new music lately. I just wrote a review for RapReviews of TLM's album Acronyms, which I'll post tomorrow. The album comes out tomorrow, and is worth a listen. I'm also working on a review of a Pohectic comp for them, probably next week. Thanks to blogs like Soul Sides, I'm getting into old soul, and hope to do some writing about Darondo and the Temptation's Psychedelic Soul. The music on that album kills me, especially tracks like the funky "Message From A Black Man."

Message From A Black Man (Albu...

Didn't I - Darondo

I'm also getting into dub reggae, and have been listening to King Tubby and Scientist, whose 1980 Best Dub Album In the World is aptly named. That got me back into the Clash, when I realized that they did a lot of dub songs, including their song with Allen Ginsberg, "Ghetto Defendant."

Ghetto Defendant - The Clash

Dub's interesting because it strips down each instrument, and it is excellent music to go to sleep to or ride the bus to (or smoke pot, if you are so inclined, but I'm not).

Then Bill Withers was on the Sound of Young America. It's an amazing show:
The Sound of Young America

...and it made me go pick up a cd of his first two albums, totally worth the money for "Use Me" alone.

Use Me - Bill Withers

THEN I downloaded a copy of the Antler's new album, which I haven't had time to listen to, and I got my fiance St. Vincent's new one and Linda Ronstadt's greatest hits. Finally, I got Mount Eerie's new CD to review for BlogCritics. It's pretty awesome, sort of Mogwai meets Iron and Wine. But heavy.



Finally, Retro Music Snob posted an MP3 of Hex Dispenser covering Devo's "Gates of Steel."
It's a good version, and made me remember how much I love the original. So here it is.



That also means I got a shit-ton amount of stuff to write about. I decided to concentrate more on movie and book reviews for Blogcritics, and the occasional new non-hip hop album I'm excited about. I've also started up a non-review centric blog where I pose short prose pieces, mostly about San Francisco. It's called Where I Belong.