Brother Ali Review

I reviewed the new Brother Ali on RapReviews this week.  I love Brother Ali and I love Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color.

Aesop Rock Review

Here's my review of Aesop Rock's latest, Skelethon.It was originally posted on RapReviews.


In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that this is the first Aesop Rock album I've ever listened to. I know he's from my hometown, I know he's been making records since the late nineties, and I know critics love him. I'm a fan of his old production partner Blockhead, and I'm a fan of his old label Definitive Jux and his current label Rhymesavers. I've even heard him featured on countless rap albums, lending his distinct voice to tracks by everyone from Percee P to Blueprint to El-P to Atmosphere to Illogic to Tame One. I've heard of Aesop Rock and I've heard Aesop Rock. So why have I never bothered to actually listen to his music?

The fact is Aesop Rock makes intimidating music. His raps are quick and dense, full of convoluted wordplay and references. He favors beats that are loud and disquieting. This isn't music to rock the party, get a club jumping, or provide a soundtrack for Friday night. Aesop's music is paranoid, insular, and unnerving. If your stereotypical rap party is a bunch of dudes in designer clothes smoking weed and drinking cognac with half-naked models in the VIP section of a swank club, "Skelethon" is two grad students on Ritalin chattering competing conspiracy theories in the kitchen of a dilapidated flat. Listening to his music is like reading a William Faulkner novel - you need CliffsNotes to understand what is going on. Those hesitations aside, I picked up his latest hoping to finally understand what the man is all about.
Let's cut to the chase: Aesop Rock really is as good as all of the critics make him out to be. Few MCs can spit rhymes as intricate dense as Aesop. Even El-P, who probably comes closest to Aesop's style, seems as simple as Flo Rida when compared to Aesop.
Take for example "ZZZ Top." The lyrics read more like prose than rap, yet he manages to make all the words fit together like verbal Tetris:

"Somebody in a cultivated moment of distress
Composed themselves enough to artfully carve 'Zoso' in this desk
They was probably thinking "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you" in they head
With a hell bound arm in a acidy wash
Homemade curfew a thousand o'clock and the pot leaf tattoo his friend did drunk
Like a badge of mystique though it technically sucked
Taking the name of the father in vein on the way to the blade in his locker
Estranged, a switch he'd lifted from a sibling's skivvy drawer
Who'd branched off into ninja stars, and never his shit was sharked to
Here with a higher purpose
In the primal urge of juvenile berserkers
Like Crocea Mors in a arcade drop claw gouging a valentine for Miss Othmar
Watch, capital "zed", slowly maneuver the "o"
"S" is the most difficult to control
Finally "o", into the eye of the goliath you go
That levy crushin' percussion'll pull the monkey upright
12 or ghetto blaster, black or technicolor telecaster
Lecture at a faster rate than class was making him develop"

There's a downside to Aesop's cleverness, though. I lifted those lyrics directly from his website because there is no way I was going to try to transcribe the torrent of words that comes out of his mouth. Especially when he's using words like "Crocea Mors," which according to Wikipedia is the name given to Julius Caesar's sword. I realize I complain a lot on RapReviews about how dumbed down so many hip-hop lyrics are, but Aesop Rock has the opposite problem. He's a little like the Dennis Miller of hip-hop. spitting so many obscure references that the audience can't help but miss most of them.

There is also the matter of Aesop Rock's voice. It's an acquired taste. He raps in a constipated flow as if he is eternally holding in a big hit of weed. His voice has turned me off in the past, but much like E-40 or B-Real's flow, you get used to it. I may never learn to love his voice, but I can live with it.

There is a big upside to Aesop Rock's challenging verbosity that makes up for the funcrushed vibe and obscure references. "Skelethon" is one of the smartest and most rewarding albums I've heard in a while, rivaled only by El-P and Killer Mike's recent work. Listening to Aesop Rock rhyme is like taking a master class in how to be an emcee: Danny Brown has said that he learned to rap by studying Aesop Rock's rhymes. The songs are riddles that you untangle a little bit more with each listen.

If you need proof of the man's brilliance, listen to "Ruby '81." It's a filler track of sorts, a brief, cinematic description of a young girl who gets out of her crib on Fourth of July while her parents are busy partying and ends up face down in the pool. Aesop builds cinematic tension describing how Ruby gets away, and just when you are sure that the story ends tragically, the family dog saves the day. Aesop paints these pictures with a poet's skill, describing the scene and the drama.

The sometimes somber and deep mood of the album is lightened by Aesop Rock's twisted sense of humor. "Homemade Mummy" describes mummifying the family cat; "Racing Stripes" is about bad homemade haircuts; "Grace" starts off with a boy wishing "Dear God Thanks/And if you loved me vegetables would be extinct." There is a wave of nostalgia throughout the album, with Aesop capturing vignettes from his own childhood and high school days.

On top of the rhymes, the record sounds great. It is the first record that Aesop has produced totally on his own, and he constructs a mix of live instruments and samples to match his rhymes. All of the beats are backed in solid, heavy drums. "ZZZ Top" is built around a drum solo, and many of the other songs feature live drums. There is a sameness to some of the songs, as he tends to lean heavily on ominous synthesizers, but he does mix it up."Fryerstarter" combines xylophone with electro shocks, and "Cycles of Gehenna" samples what sounds like a Chinese song. "Grace" sounds like the White Stripes given the boom-bap treatment.

I've mentioned El-P already in this review. It's hard to write about Aesop Rock and not think about his former label mate. Both MCs came up in the late nineties and helped blaze a trail for both indie rap and white MCs. El-P and Aesop Rock showed how white rappers could make authentic, good hip-hop without trying to sound like they were from Marcy Projects. Both released new albums this year after a five-year hiatus, both self-produced their albums, both are mourning the loss of Camu Tao, and both have some relationship issues they are dealing with. Their production style is fairly similar, although El-P is the more accomplished producer. However, there is none of El-P's b-boy posturing or battle rap roots in Aesop Rock's rhymes. He has a collaboration with folk artist Kimya Dawson coming out soon (she appears on "Skelethon,"), and those folk musical influences show up on the album. Aesop Rock seems less grounded in hip-hop than El-P, and the result is an album that is more eclectic than "Cancer 4 Cure."

Given my ignorance of Aesop's body of work, I can't comment on how this album fits into his discography or how it compares against his earlier albums. I can say that "Skelethon" won me over to Team Aesop Rock. However challenging or confusing his rhymes can be, the songs still work with their combination of banging beats, rich lyricism, and twisted humor. Aesop Rock is pushing the boundaries of hip-hop and making other MCs step their game up.

DJ Vadim Review

I reviewed DJ Vadim's Don't Be Scared last week for RapReviews. It's a pretty good dubstep/hip-hop album.

Kaye Review

I reviewed Australian rapper Kaye's debut double album for RapReviews this week. I wasn't a huge fan, but then I don't like double albums, with very few exceptions.

Been listening to the new Aesop Rock, which I hope to review this week if I get my shit together.

Went to a wedding this week and was reminded that there are no Pitbull song appropriate for dancing with your sister in law or mother in law.

But damn if this isn't a fun song:

RIP Matthew Africa

I wrote this for RapReviews. 


Matthew Africa, a Bay Area DJ, died last week in a car crash. He was 40. He had been a staple of the Bay Area since the 90s, throwing parities, making mixes, and hosting a radio show on UC Berkeley's KALX. I won't try to write an obituary of the man. Nothing I could write would come close to Oliver Wang's tribute on Sole Sides. Instead, I want to share a few thoughts about how Matthew Africa impacted my life, despite the fact that we never met.
I mostly knew Matthew from his Melting Pot blog, which I found my way through Soul Sides. He would post links to his radio show, which I sometimes listened to. Mostly, though, I waited eagerly to read his "Dig Deep" posts. In them, he'd post a few MP3s from some long-forgotten vinyl gem along with a brief description of the artist and the track. The posts not only exposed me to some amazing music, but also some insight into the mind of one of the world's premier crate-diggers and students of music. The man knew almost everything there was to know about funk, jazz, soul, latin music, African music, and anything in between. As a DJ, he understood how the music made people move, and he appreciated the magic of unearthing a gem that had been buried by time. Most important, he loved the records because he loved music, not because it was what was cool or hip at the moment.

His wide-reaching taste in music helped me to expand my own palette. I would take cues from the songs he posted, and his blog and radio show encouraged me to dig deeper into old soul, jazz, and reggae. He helped me to understand how hip-hop related to a larger body of music that went back decades and reached around the world. He helped me see that you could find the funk in unlikely places, and the only thing that mattered was if the music moved you. It's partially because of Matthew's influence that my record collection has diversified considerably in the past few years. I will forever be grateful to Matthew for keeping me connected to hip-hop's roots and for constantly showing me just how much amazing music there was in the world.

When I found out he had passed, it hit me as hard as if he had been one of my good friends. Part of it is the fact that we are similar in some ways: we are both around the same age, both came up in the Bay Area, and both had professional lives outside of music. I even discovered after his passing that we share some mutual friends. Maybe it was the way he died, in the kind of tragic car crash that could happen to anyone. But mostly I think my grief at his passing has to do with pure selfishness: I had so much more to learn from him. About Brazilian psychedelic artists to check out, about amazing soul songs that have been out of print since before I was born, about obscure Bay Area rap groups who only put out one limited-run twelve inch. And about how to always find the funk in even the most unlikely places.

Find his mixes here:
Matthewafrica.podmatic.com

And his blog here:
meltingpotblog.com

Plural Clarity and One Sixth Reviews

I reviewed two albums this week for RapReviews that were both ambitious if flawed. The first was the debut from Aussie MC One Sixth called Electronic Mail.  He raps about romance and love without sounding cheesy or sexist, which is rare in hip-hop.

The second album was Plural Clarity's Clearly There's A Problem Here... He's an incredibly sincere MC, and you can tell he put a lot of heart and soul into this project. I was put off by the production values and his flow. I feel bad for giving the album such a negative review, despite the fact that I was just being honest. I hear so much half-assed rapping by MCs who think that tossing off lazy rhymes about their cars is good enough. Plural Clarity raps have an honesty and passion that you don't hear enough of in hip-hop. I just didn't  happen to love the presentation.

I've also been trying to digest Aesop Rock's new album and the new Antibalas. And trying to get "Call Me Maybe" out of my head. Fuckin' Carly Rae Jepsen.

Mr Boss Review

I wrote about Mr. Boss's The Landing this week at RapReviews.  He's a UK producer who makes pretty solid music.

I'm listening to a few Australian CDs to review for next week. And I downloaded Rick Ross's new album and last album. "I'm Not A Star" has become my new jam. Ross's music is like candy - terrible for you, devoid of any nutrition, but still highly enjoyable.

I'm also digging the new Antibalas.



Killer Mike has a new video for "Untitled."

Solo for Dolo and 50 Years

Between moving from the city the the suburbs, I managed to write to reviews. This week I wrote about Solo for Dolo's latest album, Self-Titled. He's a New Jersey rapper who does the indie rap thing pretty well.

The week of the move I reviewed Out of Many: 50 Years of Jamaican Music, a three-disc box set celebrating Jamaica's 50-year anniversary.  It has some good songs, going chronologically from 1962 to today.

And now I no longer live a ten-minute walk from Amoeba Records, and my record-buying budget is being infringed upon by my new house payment and all the associated costs that come with moving. Which gives me more time to listen to all the stuff I amassed over the past year, I guess.

Open Mike Eagle Review

I reviewed L.A. rapper Open Mike Eagle's latest this week on RapReviews. Good, slightly nerdy rap.

And I have this song in my head:

Meyhem Lauren and Soul 7

I reviewed Meyhem Lauren's "Respect the Fly Shit" this week at RapReviews. He's got a dirty mouth, but the man can rap, and has solid production behind him.

I reviwed the Soul 7 Comp two weeks ago. I'm a fan.

Listening to a lot of Rolling Stones and Beatles.

Random Thoughts

I'm supposed to be either packing or writing a midterm or writing the first two chapters of my capstone project right now, but instead I will share these random thoughts.

1. Bikini Kill's Reject All American is one of the best punk albums ever, right up there with the first Ramones album, Minor Threat's discography, Black Flag's Damaged, the Subhumans From The Cradle To the Grave, Operation Ivy's discography, Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, and X's Los Angeles.


Need proof? Listen to "Capri Pants."

2. Mayhem Lauren is one of the better young rappers I've heard in a while, only he's almost too dirty for me.I've never been into X-rated rhymes, and he has several songs in which his sexual adventures are described in pornographic detail.


3.As part of my new initiative to listen to entire pieces of music rather than just snippets,  I've been listening to Steven Reich's "Music For 18 Musicians." It has a wonderful hypnotic quality.

4. I've also been listening to William Basinksi's "Disintegration Loop." It's loops of music he had recorded on audio tape that started to fall apart as he tried to record it to a CD. I believe this video is from the rooftop of his friend's apartment where they listened to it as the sun set on 9/11, with the song become this eulogy to the surreal and horrible experience of that day. It's haunting and mesmerizing, although not so much that I've ever managed to listen to all 60 minutes of it.



5. I watched part of "Basquiat" last night, Julian Schnabel's biopic. It was fugging terrible. I'd recommend you watch "Downtown 80" instead to get a real look at him.

The White Album

I just bought a used copy of the new reissue of the Beatles' 1968 White Album. I've never owned or listened to the entire album before. For a while I had a cassette in which I cherry picked the songs I liked on to one side. It's an amazing album, if totally incohesive. It contains some of their most beautiful songs, like "Dear Prudence," "Blackbird," and "Julia." It contains some of their heaviest songs, like "Yer Blues" and "Helter Skelter." It contains some really weird shit, like "Revolution 9" and "Wild Honey Pie." And it contains some of my favorite songs, like "I'm So Tired."

The Beatles were one of the first bands I ever listened to and loved. I remember listening to my mother's copy of Meet the Beatles when I was in first grade. It's amazing how much they changed in their brief lifespan. In seven years they went from the teeny-bop of "Love Me Do" to the psychedelic weirdness of "I Am the Walrus" to the heavy rock of "Get Back." A lot of it was the times: their trajectory followed the trajectory of popular culture, but I'm not sure how much of that was them following the trends or setting them. My only real problem with the Beatles is that I've heard their songs so much I frankly get sick of them. Which is why it's nice to rediscover their later material, which I have not had as much exposure to. Listening to them is like listening to home: comforting, familiar, sweet, and also dysfunctional and a little discordant.

Maundz Review

I reviewed Aussie rapper Maundz's Zero on RapReviews this week. Aggressive rap in the vein of Jedi Mind Tricks. Good for what it is, but not my thing.

In other news, Stones Throw's reissue label Now Again records started a subscription service. I just joined and got the Witch box set and two funk/soul collections. "Introduction" has become my new theme song.

Best of 2012 So Far

2012 has been a hell of a year so far. It started with my nephew being born on New Year's Eve, then a massive fire near my apartment New Year's Day, then my grandmother passing away a few days later, pets dying, friends getting pregnant, kids getting older, people losing homes, selling homes, buying homes. As I write this I am on the brink of possibly moving to the East Bay after living in San Francisco since 1993. I keep reminding myself that the only constant is change, and that attachment to things is the source of all misery. Much easier to say than actually feel. Although when there was a massive fire blazing four doors down from us, I realized that as long as I had my wife, I had everything I needed, which was a nice lesson to learn. Of course, when I heard our neighbor's apartment had been broken into last week and was unsure about ours, all I could think of was "Not the PS3! I've put like 30 hours into Borderlands!!!!"

Which all goes to say that there has been an undercurrent of stress running in the background for me and mine this year. It's like background noise that you get used to and don't notice until it goes away. Or water slowly boiling, to use another analogy. It's nothing we can't handle, and much less than many people deal with. The key is learning how to adapt to it, and to try to not let it all bog you down.

One constant outlet for me is music. I've been voraciously consuming music this year. I've probably bought or downloaded almost a hundred since the year started. I've gotten into jazz in a big way and discovered these new sets from Real Gone Jazz that collect 6-8 albums on 3-4 discs, all for around $14. The packaging and liner notes suck, they put two albums on each disc and the sound quality isn't amazing, but it is a nice way to get an overview of an artist's work. I've gotten sets by Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Yusef Lateef, and Curtis Fuller.

There's also been some great rap albums released this year. YU started things off with The Earn, followed by the excellent Quakers album. Death Grips, Killer Mike, and El-P followed up in the Spring by releasing three excellent albums. And that's just the stuff I listened to. Oddisee, Schoolboy Q and Blockhead have all released new albums that have gotten praise.

Maybe the only constants are change, and music.

In related news, Death Grips has a video for "Double Helix" that was filmed using a car's rear camera:


And the video for Killer Mike's "Big Beast" features zombie strippers and more gore than a horror movie.

House Shoes Review

I reviewed Detroit producer House Shoes' debut album this week on RapReviews, Let It Go. It's good. He works with a lot of underground rappers from Detroit, L.A., New York, and beyond.

Here's a video for one of my favorite songs from the album, "Time."

Harn Solo and Illogic

I reviewed Harn Solo's album Shooting Star.  Wasn't feeling it, but you can check out his bandcamp page to see if it's your thing.

I also review Illogic and Blockhead's album Preparing For Capture. I was a fan of it. You can also get it on bandcamp. 

El-P, Clams Casino,

I have some new reviews up at RapReviews.

Last week I did a review of the new Clams Casino instrumental mixtape. Hard to believe that these are hip-hop beats. They sound more like ambient electronica.

I also reviewed Romain Virgo's latest album, The System. He's one of the more promising contemporary reggae singers out there.

I also reviewed Bigg Jus's Machines That Make Civilization Fun. It is a challenging, daring record that unfortunately doesn't work in execution.

Finally, I reviewed El-P's Cancer 4 Cure.

Here's that review, originally posted on RapReviews:



An El-P album is an event. He's only released three vocal albums in the past ten years, and each one has been a must-own, at least for fans of underground hip-hop. His albums are carefully constructed, full of complicated rhymes, themes, and beats. He does all his own production (only fitting for a man originally known as El-Producto), collaborating with a team of musicians to create music that falls somewhere between hip-hop, rock, and noise. Each of his two previous albums set such a high standard that when he announced his latest release, fans had to wonder if he could keep up his winning streak. From the first listen of "Cancer 4 Cure," the answer is clear: of course he can.

2002's "Fantastic Damage" tried to process post 9/11 New York, and 2007's "I'll Sleep When You're Dead" captured the paranoia and dysfunction of the Bush years. El-P has called "Cancer 4 Cure" his fighting record, and the man's got a lot to be angry about. The economy is STILL in the toilet, being voted out of office somehow made the right wing come back angrier and stronger than ever, we're still fighting two endless wars that we refuse to talk about or pay for, and, oh yeah, El-P lost his label AND his best friend. While the death of Camu Tao hangs over the album, the demise of Definitive Jux seems to have given El-P the gift of freedom. He no longer has to worry about negotiating with artists, vendors, distributors, and retailers. He's not bogged down in the day-to-day business of running a label, and is no longer on the front lines of the disintegrating record industry. Instead he's free to do what he does best: make amazing beats and spit intricate rhymes. He's already done some of his best production work in years on Killer Mike's "R.A.P. Music," so evidently losing his label hasn't kept him down.

Let me put this out there: El-P isn't the most technically proficient rapper. His stentorian flow is reminiscent of Chuck D, but his delivery lacks finesse or swagger. It's not that he's bad, but he's not the greatest rapper ever. When Danny Brown and Killer Mike show up they outshine El-P, despite the fact that both of their verses are tossed-off. However, what El-P lacks in style he more than makes up for by being one of the best lyricists and storytellers in hip-hop. The man should be writing novels and poetry. His gifts almost seem wasted in rap format, especially since he only dribbles out 13 tracks every five years. The operative word here is almost, because the combination of El-P's lyrics and beats is almost always gold.

Case in point: "The Full Retard." The track samples Camu Tao's "When You're Going Down," with the late rapper urging the listener to "pump this shit like they do in the future." And future is exactly the word to describe El-P's production. Ominous synths, clattering noise, and sci-fi samples are his bread and butter. His beats are like art made out of garbage. He takes a bunch of cast-off, disparate elements and molds them into some other level shit. Any idiot with a computer can make noisy beats, though. What makes an El-P beat an El-P beat is his deep knowledge of and respect for hip-hop. His beats are BEATS, grounded in banging drums and often referencing the golden age of 80s New York rap, when being noisy was a good thing. There is a little more bang in this album than on "I'll Sleep When You're Dead." That album had its share of slow and experimental tracks. For the most part, "Cancer 4 Cure" moves relentlessly forward, barely stopping to take a breath.

El-P is a master at one-liners and clever wordplay. "Don't you know this is a rotten time to not not be me?" he asks on "Works Every Time." "I've got memories to lose, man, I am in a rush." On the sort-of love song "The Jig Is Up," he tells a potential suitor "Men like me don't ever get no second chance/Not for the kind of man who showed up at death's door and ding dong dashed so much he wore out a hole in the welcome mat." His lyrics are full of references and double meanings, so much so that you'll still be unpacking them even after hundreds of listens. He's sort of like hip-hop's version of William Faulkner, whose novels are so dense you need the Cliff's Notes just to understand what the hell is going on. Five years after "I'll Sleep When You're Dead" came out I'm still discovering new things in those songs, and "Cancer 4 Cure" will demand an equal amount of attention.

A lot of this album deals with dark subject matter. The single "Drones Over Brooklyn" imagines New York under siege. "For My Upstairs Neighbor (Mums the Word)" seems at first to be about the insensitivity of New York life, as a man is questioned by the police about an incident at his neighbor's apartment:

"You all know what I know and that's heaping pile of donut holes
I didn't even know them
I am not your perfect witness
Your team of fat blue buddies waddling around and trying to crack the case
Are better off locating someone else
I spent the day on my New York shit
Didn't even meet them once
And no I'm not upset, I'm just another guy minding his business
[...]
Come on, you know the drill
These walls are thick
I got my own shit that I'm dealing with
I haven't seen or heard a thing
I never met 'em
That's the city
Good luck working it, Columbo
I'ma bounce
You got my info but you'll never get my pity and I'm out"

It's only later in the song that you realize that what is really happening is that the neighbor has been beating his wife, and the narrator is giving the wife permission to kill her abuser, telling her "If you kill him, I won't tell." This is a return to subject matter he first delved into on Company Flow's "Last Good Sleep," in which he described pretending to sleep while his stepfather beat his mother.

"Tougher Colder Killer" describes a soldier interrogating an enemy, delving into the horrors of the wars we are fighting, and the psychological and physical damage they are inflicting on everyone involved.

"To the mother of my enemy I just killed
Your son, he died with his face to the sky and
It can not be undone
He didn't die hard
In the end he just grinned and bowed
Made him dig his own grave at the point of a gun while he laughed to the gods out loud
And it made me wanna jump out a window
And it made me wanna scream
Tear my face off
Run through the streets
[...]
I wanted you to know that since then I don't sleep
And the uniform tags sidearm ID that I wore when I did it got sent C.O.D to the HQ
Note reading 'This is not me and I hate you
For making me make a man bleed.'"

I grew up with several Vietnam vets who bore the scars from that war decades after it ended, and I can only imagine that our current wars are causing just as many scars on the young people who are fighting them. "Tougher Colder Killer" addresses the deeper, longer term effects of war on its combatants.

This being an El-P album, there are the inevitable songs about dysfunctional relationships, or more accurately, how he doesn't understand why women like him when he thinks he is such a mess. "The Jig Is Up" overcomes its emo self-loathing with a banging beat. "Sign Here" is either an interrogation or a sado-masochistic relationship. Either way it is creepy as hell. The album ends with the eight-minute long "$4 Vic/Nothing But You + Me (FTL)." The production is muddy and dirge-like, until the outro kicks in at the 6 minute mark sampling what sounds like the intro to "Kid Icarus." El-P sheds his hard exterior, rapping:

"I know there's
Something good that I'd die here for
Something great that I'd live here for
Something fly that I'd write for you
Something wrong that I'd bite you for
Something sacred you'd cure me of
Something sad to make sure your loved
Some of us cannot trust no one
Some of us don't deserve no trust
Nothing wrong with not being strong
Nothing says we need to beat what's wrong
Nothing manmade remains made long
That's a debt we can't back out of
Nothing that they can take from you
[...]
They can torture and interrogate
And shackle to my boot
I will gnaw off my own leg
And hop the fuck right back to you"

"Cancer 4 Cure" can get headache-inducing at times. Some of the noisy beats are noisier than others, and it can be an awful lot of vitriol to take in one sitting. Still, it is prime El-P, deep, heavy, funny, and banging all at the same time. The picture El-P paints with "Cancer 4 Cure" isn't always a pretty one, but it is always well-executed and uniquely his own.

What I've Been Listening To

I've been on a compulsive jazz-buying binge lately. One of my goals in life is to own every John Coltrane album, and to that effect I bought used copies of Ballads and The John Coltrane Plays. Then I downloaded My Favorite Things. Last week I bought a four-CD compilation of Charlie Parker's work. Europe has different copyright laws, so it is easier for European labels to release budget collection of jazz works. I got a collection of Miles Davis' and John Coltrane's early albums last year, and yesterday I traded in a bunch of CDs and bought a collection of eight Duke Ellington albums, eight Thelonious Monk albums, three Art Blakley albums, and two Dizzy Gillespie albums. Which is sort of ridiculous, I realize, but it was all stuff I wanted to hear and the collections were cheaper than individual albums. The sound quality isn't amazing, and the liner notes suck, but in terms of hearing a lot of their material they are really valuable.

In between listening to all that jazz, I've been working on a review of El-P's new album. He just released a video for "The Full Retard," in which he parties hard with a squirrel puppet. Have you ever seen Meet the Feebles? It's a little like that.

Killer Mike, Pep Love, and Zomby Reviews

I have a few new reviews up at RapReviews.com.

First up is the Killer Mike/El-P collaboration , R.A.P. Music. It's awesome, just like everyone says.

Second is Pep Love's Rigmarole. I wasn't a fan, and gave it a somewhat harsh review. OK Player and HipHopDx beg to differ with my opinion, so maybe it's amazing and I just don't get it.

Finally, I reviewed Zomby's Dedication this week. It's downtempo dubstep that had a hip-hop feel, to me at least. I love it.

I've been listening to the latest El-P and Big Juss, and will hopefully have a review up soon.

Gentleman Review, Killer Mike, Subhumans

I reviewed German reggae artist Gentleman's Divsersity on RapReviews this week.  I've had it for a while, but only got around to listening to it recently. It grew on me.

I also downloaded the Subhumans 1984 album From the Cradle to the Grave. Legally. I have it on cassette. It was one of my favorite albums when I was 15, and it still holds up, especially the 16-minute title track. I should really write a longer piece about it. It's a somewhat rambling diatribe against the British educational system, war, the government, and the SYSTEM, man. But there are some good lines.


They'll say you ought to learn a trade to help you in your life
Success is written in three parts: A job, a house, a wife
They'll say that school prepares you for the awesome world outside
Well it certainly gives you bigotry and patriotic pride

Racism, sexism teacher to class
From school to work remains the sameare you white and middle class?

You'll learn that bad men dress in black and good men dress in white
And the pamphlets in the playground say that's right
And that girls were made for housework and boys were made to fight
And the naughty pictures on page 3 make everything alright

I also got the new El-P produced Killer Mike album, R.A.P. Music.  It's so, so good. Like, Death Certificate levels of good. I'm hoping to be able to write a review of it next week.

And on a totally unrelated note, here is my favorite video of all time right now. I watch it several times a week. Because it's JackTastic! And Sue. We all hate you. We hate you so much.