Lootpack and Von Pea Reviews

I reviewed two Madlib-related projects on RapReviews this week. The first was a review of Lootpack's 1999 debut, Soundpieces: Da Antidote!, on which Madlib was producer and rapper. It's a low-key backpack album, good in small bites but somewhat monotonous taken all 24 tracks at once. I like the album, but it took me a long time to get around to writing about it, and even then my review is a little terse. I don't know why. It does have an anti-weed dependency song, "Weededed," which is a little odd given Madlib's love affair with the herb. My favorite track is "Answers," which features Madlib's alter-ego Quasimoto:

Answers (feat Quasimoto) - Lootpack
My review is here:
www.rapreviews.com/archive/BTTL_lootpacksoundpieces.html


I also reviewed Von Pea from Tanya Morgan's free mixtape, The Further Adventures of Von Pea. I like Von Pea's laid back, slightly sloppy rapping style, but I'm more excited that he is mining Quasimoto's 2005 The Further Adventures of Lord Quas for beats. That is one of my favorite hip hop albums ever. It's like the hip hop equivalent of Sgt. Pepper's, Revolver, and the White Album rolled into one. There are a ton of crazy, trippy samples, and the whole record has a psychedelic vibe.


My review of Von Pea's album can be found here:
www.rapreviews.com/archive/2009_01_adventuresofvonpea.html
And the album can be downloaded on Von Pea's myspace page at www.myspace.com/vonpea.

Here's "Greenery," one of my favorite songs from The Further Adventures of Lord Quas. Ok, so it's a track about smoking pot, and Madlib duets with himself. Still, I love that beat, and the whole thing is wonderfully bugged-out.

Greenery - Quasimoto

Bon Iver Meets T-Pain

Bon Iver
Blood Bank EP
Jagjaguwar, 2009

Bon Iver's new four-song EP Blood Bank came out today. I've only done a once-through, but it sounds a little more rocking than the debut, and sounds more like a band than a dude in a cabin. They are definitely progressing.

It opens with "Blood Bank," which features him singing in his normal singing voice, versus a falsetto. I think I love it as much as anything on For Emma, Forever Ago.

Blood Bank - Bon Iver

"Beach Baby" is delicate acoustic guitar with falsetto, and may have been recorded at the same time as For Emma. "Babys" opens with a long piano thing that sounded a little like one of the instrumentals from Sufjan Stevens' Come on Feel the Illinoise. I'm not madly in love with it, but whatever, I'm along for the ride.

Im not nearly as convinced by the EP closer, however. "Woods" features Justin Vernon singing with, yes, autotune. As in T-Pain, Kanye, and Cher. As in, not a good look. As in, I thought those weren't going to be allowed to enter 2009. I thought Obama specifically mentioned how wack autotune was in his inauguration speech today. There is no place for robot voices in an Obamanation. An African-American man didn't get elected President of the United States just so people could mask their true voices with an electronic pitch-correcting program. "Woods" is actually kind of a cool song, and sounds a little like a Daft Punk chill out track, so I'll forgive Bon Iver. I just hope their new album isn't full of this autotune shit.

Woods - Bon Iver

Young @ Heart

I watched Young@Heart the other night, which is a documentary about the Young At Heart chorus in Northhampton, Mass. It is a chorus of senior citizens who do contemporary rock songs by the likes of Coldplay, Talking Heads, and Sonic Youth. The idea is that this gives the chorus members something to look forward to, and a reason to exist and feel needed and important. It's a pretty awesome documentary, and one of my favorite moments was when they covered Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia." I wanted to post it here, but I can't find it online anywhere, so I'm posting the original song.
This was off of their 1987 album "Sister," and it is one of my favorite songs by them. It captures what makes Sonic Youth such a great band. It has a beat, it has a melody, and it then it just sort of devolves into this ambient squall. It's like they are deconstructing what a rock song should be, and then piecing it all back together in a way that works. They were all involved in avant-garde music in New York in the late seventies, so they take that approach to more conventional punk and post punk. Their earlier stuff is more experimental and noisy, but it was right around "Sister" that they started writing more melodic songs. They've managed to stay fairly interesting and relevent; I still listen to their 2004 album "Sonic Nurse" pretty regularly. Their new album is supposed to be black metal. I can't wait to hear what that's like.

Schizophrenia - Sonic Youth

Common - Universal Mind Control

Critics are pretty much savaging Common's new album, Universal Mind Control. They don't like his new electro sound, and they especially don't like his attempt to get freaky deaky with it, abandoning the conscious BoHo rap that made him a favorite amongst coffee shops and universities. I've never been a fan of Common: Mostly I don't really like his style, and the few songs I've heard by him haven't rocked my world. So it's ironic that the first Common album that piques my interest is the album that everyone most everyone hates. I really love the first single off the album, "Universal Mind Control." Mostly I love the beat, which mines the same 80s electro vibe that Black Milk and Kanye West have been working with this past year. The Neptunes handle most of the production on the album, and from what I've heard, I like the sound they are exploring. It's almost as if hip hop has gone a little electroclash, only they are doing it in a more soulful, more effective, less annoying way than all of those groups and producers in the early 2000s. I may even end up buying the record. I'm not invested in Common, so the fact that he is doing booty rap doesn't offend me. Most of the critics that are taking umbrage with his new direction feel like Common has betrayed them. They count on Common to be an antidote to mindless booty rap, and now he's making it. Whatevs. It sounds good. And while I'm at it, I'm going to pick up his 2002 psychedelic weirdness Electric Circus, produced by the late great J Dilla.

Universal Mind Control - Common

Hype Williams did the video, which I kind of like. It's on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo7FpI8MmmE

Check out Black Milk's "The Matrix," which has the same electro sound. I'm a fan.

The Matrix (Feat. Sean Price & Pharoahe Monch) - Black Milk

Jake One - White Van Music

Jake One
White Van Music
Rymesayers, 2008

Back in November, I wrote about how much I liked Jake One's single "The Truth." I finally got around to buying a copy of the album at the end of December. I went big, and got the deluxe edition with the bonus instrumental disc. First off, I have to say that Rhymesayers does CD's right: the packaging is nice, and the liner notes make the extra money you spend for a physical copy worth it. There's nothing worse than plopping down 14 or 15 bucks for a CD only to realize that all your getting is a single-sided insert.

The album features a ton of rappers on it. Jake One is a producer who has worked with G-Unit et. al, and he rallied up a diverse group of rappers to spit bars over his beats. Besides Freeway and Brother Ali on "the Truth," the album has Young Buck, MF DOOM, Slug, Busta Rhymes, Casual, Little Brother, Posdnous from De La Soul, M.O.P., Keak Da Sneak, Elzhi, Royce Da 5/9, Blueprint, Prodigy, and a whole bunch of other dudes. It's an odd mix of backpack rappers and more hardcore rappers, and that's the one thing that turns me off a bit about the whole project. I love the tracks by MF DOOM, Elzhi, and the other indie rappers, but the gutter tough-talking by the other rappers got old. I don't need to hear rappers called out for having "sand in their pussy." What does that even mean? I'd be curious to know if the other end has the same problem I have, but in reverse. In other words, are G-Unit fans feeling the Young Buck and Bishop Lamont tracks, but wondering what the hell is up with Slug and MF Doom?

Luckily, I got the bonus instrumental disc, which allows me to enjoy the dusty grooves Jake One delivers without being distracted by the gangsterism some of the rappers drop. "White Van Music" may not be totally consistent, but it's still worth a listen.

(Thanks to hiphopst.blogspot.com for the image.)

Lord Infamous Review

My review of Lord Infamous' After Sics is up at RapReviews.com here:
www.rapreviews.com/archive/2009_01_aftersics.html

I'm not sure why he spelled it "sics." Is that gangsta-spell for "six?" I don't get it.

Anyways, Southern street rap may not be my thing, but this is pretty damn good Southern street rap. To quote myself:
"After Sics" may not be the most morally defesible hip hop album of the year, but if you are a fan of Three 6 Mafia or Lord Infamous, then you are probably already prepared for the fact that all of the songs will be about drugging, thugging, or bitches. Wishing Southern rap was less materialistic and mysoginystic is sort of like wishing that Southern food would have less fat and sodium. Like plate of fried pork chops, "After Sics" may not be the most nutritious meal, but it tastes good going down."

It comes out in a week, so I won't post any songs from it, but I will post a track from the original Southern macks, UGK.

Front, Back & Side to Side - UGK

The Evolution of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video

Step One: Bob Fosse's choreography for Gwen Verdon's "Mexican Breakfast":



Step two: Same choreography set to Unk's "Walk It Out." It's amazing how well "Walk It Out" works with the dance, especially considering how different it is from the original song:


Step Three: "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On it)" directed by Jake Nava, using the same choreography, but way better outfits, and way more sass:

Single Ladies Video

I love that video. Thanks to my sister for hepping me to the Fosse original.

Wax and E.O.M. Review

My review of Wax and E.O.M.'s Liquid Courage is up at RapReviews right now, here:
www.rapreviews.com/archive/2009_01_liquidcourage.html

Like so many great duos, they met on the internet. There first collaboration was "The Adventures of Larry and Tina," and that worked out well so they did an album. They also made a shiny video for it.

Sort of like Eminem but less assholey. They have more videos at their Myspace page.

Musical Gluttony

As always happens this time of year, I've consumed way more music than I can reasonably digest. In the past two weeks I've downloaded one album, bought four records and two albums, and got two albums to review. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to be able to listen to all of this, and I'll be spending the next few weeks digesting all of the music I've pigged out on.

One of the albums I bought was Liquid Liquid. They were a NY-based post-punk dance band in the vein of ESG or the Rapture. Their song "Cavern" was interpolated as the basis for Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel's "White Lines." That song is a pretty inspired burst of dubby bass and tribal weirdness, odd but still funky. Too much of the rest of the album devolves into no wave caterwauling, but it's art-damaged enough to be interesting if not always enjoyable. I probably only needed "Cavern," but whatevs.

Cavern - Liquid Liquid

I also bought the first album by now-defunt Nashville spazz-punk band Be Your Own Pet. It's noisy blast of catchy, snotty punk full of brilliant lines like "wanna a get a cat/my boyfriend wants a dog/gonna drown him in the bog."

Bog - be your own PET

I also downloaded "Theme For A Broken Soul" by DJ Rels, aka Madlib. It's Madlib's attempt at dance music, and while it is decent soulful house, it's not quite my thing. I get bored before I can finish a song.

The Doo (Do it) - DJ Rels

I also got review copies of Wax and E.O.M.'s debut, and the new solo record by Lord Infamous of Three 6 Mafia. Reviews should be up soon. Finally, I got four records - two double albums of Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hammerstein, an old blues record by Young Alberta Hunter, and the Go-Go's "Beauty and the Beat." It doesn't sound fabulous on our record player, but "We Got the Beat" still brings back memories. It makes me want to watch "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" again. Here's a video of the Go-Go's playing live in 1981. Belinda is still in her chubby glory, and they are opening for the Surf Punks, another horrible band I used to really like. Oh the 80s, so horrifying and so amazing at the same time.

Lil Byrd - Tha Most Fly Review

I reviewed Lil Byrd's "Tha Most Fly" on RapReviews last week. You can read it here:
http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2008_12_thamostfly.html

Lil Byrd is a Houston rapper. His subject matter wasn't mind-blowing, but the production was interesting, and I liked it more than the album cover led me to believe I would. Janky cover, decent album.