December 27, 2011
Essentially Eclectic’s Albums of 2011: Numbers 10-1
Following on from 20-11, here be the top 10…
10. The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient
Beautifully languid Americana from Philly’s finest.
The War on Drugs – Brothers (Slave Ambient)
9. Evenings – Lately
Some ambient instrumental genius discovered over at Evening’s Bandcamp page.
Evenings – [Lately] See You Soon (Lately)
8. James Blake – James Blake
The much-lauded, self-titled debut from Blake deserved its plaudits.
James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream (James Blake)
Soft Powers – Outlandish Scandals
Brilliantly creative and esoteric rock from the outlandishly productive Soft Powers
Soft Powers – 1,300 Decibels (Outlandish Scandals)
6. Emika – Emika
One-woman producer/singer Emika created one of the year’s most forward-thinking bass music albums.
Emika – Count Backwards (Emika)
5. Summer Camp – Welcome to Condale
London duo combine pastiche with a sixth sense for melody, while proving themselves pretty handy live too
Summer Camp – Down (Welcome to Condale)
4. Pinch & Shackleton – Pinch & Shackleton
Some exquisitely composed and ambitious bass music from the two masters of the genre.
Pinch & Shackleton – Boracay Drift (Pinch & Shackleton)
3. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
By far the best hip-hop album of the year, Black Up is dark, brooding and oozing effortless originality.
Shabazz Palaces – Recollections of the Wraith (Black Up)
2. Balam Acab – Wander/Wonder
Ethereal, ice-cold and majestic stuff from the Tri-Angle Records man with the visual nature.
Balam Acab – Apart (Wander/Wonder)
1. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for my Halo
Essentially Eclectic’s love affair with Kurt Vile is no secret, from tumbling superlatives about live performances to a more than positive review for Smoke Ring for my Halo. It’s no surprise then that the long-haired Philadelphia man tops the tree in our round-up of 2011.
Kurt Vile – Runner Ups (Smoke Ring for my Halo)
December 21, 2011
Essentially Eclectic Albums of 2011: Numbers 20-11
It’s list time all over the world once again, and Essentially Eclectic neither sees itself above them nor can resist the chance to share its own. Last year we went for an ambitious top 40 songs of 2010, so this year we’re concentrating on the long players – 20 of them to be precise. Here’s numbers 20-11 (with a track from each). The top ten to follow over the coming week…
20. Jonti – Twirligig
Some delightfully bizarre production trickery from the Stones Throw man. Colourful, playful, delightful.
Jonti – Cyclic Love (Twirligig)
19. Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx – We’re New Here
Scott-Heron’s sad passing this year was marked poignantly by this Jamie xx reworking of his final word, I’m New Here. Also check out a Gil Scott-Heron minimix we did back in May…
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx – The Crutch (We’re New Here)
18. Teebs – Collections 01
The former Flying Lotus apprentice moves out from behind his master’s shadow with this fine collection of neck-snapping beats.
Teebs – LSP featuring Austin Peralta (Collections 01)
17. Nicolas Jaar – Space is Only Noise
Elements of trip-hop, electronica and a healthy dose of musique concrete went into Jaar’s impressive full length debut.
Also check out this video/short film for the track ‘Keep me There’, directed by Lucas Duchemin…
Nicolas Jaar – Colomb (Space is Only Noise)
16. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
Merrill Garbus’ wonderfully weird world is given album form on the bizarre and incredibly creative w h o k i l l.
tUnE-yArDs – Es-So (w h o k i l l)
15. Tycho – Dive
Scott Hansen’s warming Boards of Canada-esque synth textures are put to good use on Dive, his latest full length as Tycho. Also check out Hansen’s immaculately kept photo and music blog.
14. Gardens & Villa – Gardens & Villa
Santa Barbara group Gardens & Villa arrived in the summer with a unique sound and a handful of great songs that make up their self-titled debut.
Gardens & Villa – Black Hills (Gardens & Villa)
13. Bjork – Biophilia
Essentially Eclectic’s tendency for a bit of Bjork love is no secret, so it’s no surprise that her adventurous latest Biophilia makes the list. The album came complete with a set of apps for each track based on the scientific content, but it’s the music itself that interests us.
Bjork – Thunderbolt (Biophilia)
12. Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
Obaro Ejimiwe delivered a refreshing take on UK hip-hop with his Ghostpoet debut.
Ghostpoet – Us Against Whatever Ever (Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam)
11. Cults – Cults
Mixing Spector girl-group aesthetics with incessantly catchy tunes (and an almost unhealthy amount of glockenspiel), Cults’ debut produced the (cringe) “feel good hit of the summer” (cringe) with ‘Go Outside’.
December 20, 2011
Feature: The State of Bass, 2011
As a year that saw the 10th anniversary of the crucial FWD>> club night – one of the genre’s original breeding grounds – 2011 seems as better time as any to take stock of dubstep’s growth and progress by evaluating its current state, and looking to where it might go from here. In the last ten years, the genre has made stars of some of its earlier innovators; seen its influence spread globally; won both critical and commercial acclaim; and made bass addicts of countless fans who continue to show reverence to its culture and history as it matures. Just to note: it could be reductive to use the term dubstep when describing its present state due to the way the genre has split and diffracted, and the catchall term “bass music” is perhaps more useful as a reference; allowing deeper analysis of the various alternative styles on which to draw that producers have available to them.
Under this umbrella description are a growing number of artists that use dubstep as one of the many compositional tools at their disposal, and 2011 has seen a further continuation of bass music’s fascinating creative possibilities. Having permeated the charts in a commercial and garishly polished package (as so much underground music eventually does), dubstep’s pioneers were left free to experiment, evolve, and continue to perpetuate forward motion, and some of the year’s best releases serve as audio brochures for quite how much the music has developed and where it could go from here.
As a primary example, we have the stunning self-titled debut from Bristol-raised, Berlin-based singer/producer Emika. Cramming everything from dark, brooding synth-pop, to hard and metallic grime tones, to deep and shuddering dubstep productions into 12 consistent and challenging tracks, the Native Instruments sound designer even touches on her classical piano training for the romantic miniature of closer ‘Credit Theme’. The result is breath taking, and exposes every facet of Emika’s Bristol background (the tail-end of trip-hop was obviously a big influence, as was time spent with Peverelist and the rest of the Punch Drunk stable) as much as the current osmosis of minimal Berlin techno she now enjoys. If Emika’s literal and stylistic voice represents dubstep’s future, it’s in good hands.
Some of those that have been immersed in bass music’s deeper reaches for some time now also returned in 2011 for another rewrite of the rules. Pinch & Shackleton, two of sub-bass led musics most respected practitioners, joined forces to produce a spectacular inversion of Shackleton’s Skull Disco sound with another of this year’s self-titled albums. ‘Pinch & Shackleton’ is terrifying in both mood and intricacy; its spook conjured from cavernous reverbs, quivering bass and carefully manipulated tones and samples. Loops take a back seat, as the pair layer mutating percussive ideas and eastern instruments into somehow dense-yet-infinitely-spacious constructs of sound, even at one point setting a preaching vocal sample into phase with itself to demented effect. The release acts as one of the clearest demonstrations yet as to how vast bass music’s possibilities are, and, along with Zomby (who’s ‘Dedication’ album from this year shares Pinch & Shackleton’s ghostly undertones), the pair guide the way for those producers looking to branch out from the more garish, club-orientated end of the bass music spectrum.
Vocalised ‘pop-step’ took on a new level of sophistication this year too, represented in different ways by SBTRKT’s self-titled ‘SBTRKT’ and Katy B’s ‘On a Mission’. Both these releases (as with the Emika album mentioned above) showed that the classic verse-chorus structure could be utilised within the genre: proof that a good hook works just as well over the pulsating bass of the former’s Little Dragon-featuring ‘Wildfire’ as it does for ABBA’s entire back catalogue. ‘On A Mission’ places Katy B into a long-exercised tradition; heading from the underground to the clubs in a way not too dissimilar to how sometime collaborator Ms Dynamite did with garage before her, while SBTRKT augmented his highly considered productions with vocals, touring the tracks with Sampha in an impressive live show.
The exact genre of James Blake’s debut full-length is a point of contentious debate – especially in its differences to the brilliantly twisted instrumentals of his earlier EPs – but only the true purists would deny that the rumbling sub-frequencies and imposingly slow tempos owe some debt to dubstep’s imperious wobble (I personally hear an innovative yet entirely un-dubstep variation on the singer-songwriter tradition), hopefully seeing a quick disappearance of the cringe worthy ‘blub-step’ tag.
There was even room this year for an EP from the genre’s most esoteric member, Burial, who’s style is so distinctive that it sits in its own little corner, quietly peddling its yearning muffle in a way that consistently takes the breath away. Burial has long recognised dubstep’s endless potential for conjuring moods, and ‘Street Halo’ proved that his unique sound is still without equal.
So dubstep, and bass music in general is in prime health, safe in its position as a forerunner of musical innovation. It may have become unrecognisable from its dub/2-step crossover beginnings, its borders stretched and constantly tested (the 8-bit beeps of Rustie’s ‘Glass Swords’ and Kode9 & Spaceape’s smoked out monster ‘Black Sun’ would seem far removed from the genre to dubstep’s earlier creators), leaving nothing but anticipation for the fruits of its next ten years.
Read this review in context over at HYPONIK
December 15, 2011
Review: Royalty – ‘Purple Nights’
Royalty – Purple Nights
Five Easy Pieces
East London duo Chesca and Elliott Yorke have been producing high calibre electro-funk separately for a number of years now, and their partnership as Royalty is one that excites as much as it makes complete sense. The pair celebrated their union earlier in the year with a flurry of EP releases for the Five Easy Pieces label, the latest of which, Purple Nights, demonstrates the rapid maturity of their suave digital boogie.
Opener ‘Cookie Dough’ is constructed from steadily building layers of synths and electro drums, each new melody line or chord sequence that drops in playing an important role in the song’s equation. It’s followed directly by a reworking from Detroit man Jimmy Edgar, which turns out to be one of the best things here. Taking the track straight back to the house clubs of ‘80s New York, Edgar throws some ultra-shuffled keys and diva-ish vocal samples into the
7-minute plus mix, completely transforming the original into a slow burn masterpiece.
‘Heart Strings’ continues the ‘80s theme, blending a little Fat Back Band synth funk with a cop show soundtrack feel, before ‘Octane’s fluttering sequencer runs give way to more of the same; checking its coat at the door before strutting to the bar for a piña colada. Dâm-Funk would be an obvious contemporary touchstone, yet Royalty’s sound bypasses the hammed up Zapp and Roger bounce of the Californian; raising the tempo and drawing straight from the
heart of their influences – sometimes to their own detriment. The tone here is ‘80s to the core, and Royalty are sometimes guilty of transcending pastiche and just recycling the decade’s sound in a production-by-numbers way. When they get it right however, as with the 808 bounce of ‘Halley’s Trail’ – a coastal breeze of a track, complete with shimmering chords and a laid back swagger – it’s devastatingly good, and only serves to drive home the shortfalls of some of their less inventive material.
More polished than the Royalty EP, and less frantic than the dance floor techno-funk of ‘Staircase’ EP, this collection signifies a bright future for the duo, one that hopefully includes a full-length release in 2012.
Read this review in context over at HYPONIK
December 12, 2011
Review: Pinch & Shackleton – ‘Pinch & Shackleton’
Pinch & Shackleton – Pinch & Shackleton
Honest Jons Records
In a genre still very much developing its own cannon, it’s often quite hard to place new dubstep/bass music albums within a musical family tree. Often comparisons are grasped at and references to contemporaries vaguely made, but the emphasis is generally placed on the sonic qualities of the music itself.
That in mind, this latest meeting of dubstep minds – Bristol’s imperious Tectonic boss Pinch and one of the genre’s most consitant performers, Shackleton – is an atmospheric monster; as ambitious as it is exhilarating; and arguably without immediate precedent in its field. True, its dub-heavy caves of reverb and the constantly mutating arrangements of tracks like ‘Jellybone’ or ‘Monks on the Run’ recall the work of Disrupt, and the tribal meltdown of the spellbinding ‘Burning Blood’ has shades of Vessel or even Kind Midas Sound about it, but these are stretched associations. What is clear from the slow-build of opener ‘Cracks in the Pleasuredome’ onwards however, is that here lies a document that will surely stand the test of time, outlasting the instantly-gratifying and less subtle work of some of its contemporaries.
Tracks are constructed from multiple sections, but flow so seamlessly that this isn’t immediately apparent. Distant beat fragments drift in and out, providing tangential routes down which the two producers dive headlong at every given opportunity. The albun’s disorientating spook is a big feature of Shackleton’s work with the Skull Disco imprint he co-runs, and it’s presumably his influence that brings this mood to the table. That’s not to say the now Berlin-based man is the designated driver here – despites his eight-or-so years in the bass music game that makes him a near veteran – as Pinch & Shackleton is a collaboration of the truest form: not two distinct styles mashed together, but a congruent alliance; something wholly original from the solo work of its creators. (It’s almost a shame that they didn’t feel the need to separate their individual identities from this project and give themselves a new moniker under which to work.)
Whatever the role each takes on, the point at which these two craftsmen sonically intersect produces remarkable work, such as the playful and fluctuating percussion workout on ‘Torn and Submerged’, and ‘Rooms Within a Room’s sci-fi ambiance augmented by the colossal scrape of a reversed snare. The damning vocal loop that provides ‘Selfish Greedy Life’ with its title is brought in and out of phase in a way that echoes Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain, also aping the demonic feel that that composition achieved.
Closer ‘Boracay Drift’ seals the deal, the terror of its opening white noise synths giving way to a syncopated landfill of different compositional elements, the eeriness nailed in place by possessed backward vocals and schizophrenic beats. But as with many of the tracks here, these are merely some of countless musical ideas that fit effortlessly together in an example of the catch-me-if-you-can arrangements that elevate Pinch and Shackleton above the looped constraints of most bass music genres.
Read this review in context over at THE STOOL PIGEON
Review: Emika – ‘Emika’
Emika – Emika
Ninja Tune
Ok, let’s get it out the way nice and early: Emika is a genius, and if you don’t agree, then… I don’t know – you’re an idiot or something.
Apologies for the outburst there, but it’s always nice when an artist comes along that bring out the inner-Tony Parsons in you, damning all to hell who don’t agree that they’re as fantastic as you believe. British-born Czech producer/sound addict Emika is such an artist, and her full length debut for Ninja Tune is worth the excitement.
It’s important to note first of all that the release is self-titled, as Emika the album and Emika the person appear intrinsically linked. It’s rare to be presented with such meditative human emotion and a strong vocal focus over beats as imposing as ‘Professional Loving’ or the skittering ‘FM Attention’, but somehow this makes the metallic productions even colder and more detached.
The chameleonic producer cycles through bass music influences as if digging through racks of 12”s in the record shops of her Berlin home (she moved to the city after first cutting her teeth on the Bristol dubstep circuit, where she now works as a sound designer for Native Instruments), and her tracks evade genre like classification dobby. The crunching bass lines of her dubstep roots sit alongside subtler trip-hop memes, with all out twisted electro weirdness never far away.
Instrumentals like ‘Be My Guest’ flirt with the nerve-damaging bass tones and hypnotic rhythms of forefathers like Pinch or Peverelist, while compelling opener ‘3 Hours’ rattles around at the darkest edges of synth-pop. Tempos are varying, with Emika equally at home showcasing her skills over fast-paced four-to-the-floor kicks (‘Come Catch Me’, ‘Pretend’) or glacially slow pianos and electronic blips (‘Double Edge’). Her range is vast and impressive; even slipping into terrifying electro-horror on ‘The Long Goodbye’, with shades of Italian prog-rockers Goblin and their soundtracks to old Dario Argento films. Fright night continues into the rushing hi-hats of ‘FM Attention’; disconnected vocal fragments sticking out of the darkness at odd angles. Ninja Tune may have just released the debut album by the Delia Derbyshire of dubstep…
It’s hard not to use the cringe worthy descriptor “sassy” when discussing Emika’s vocals, but with the way she confidently slinks around ‘Drop the Other’, the term is positively redefined. With the UK bass music sound now entrenched in many areas of contemporary popular music, Emika turns the tables by pulling in elements of pop/R&B (a notable feature on ‘Drop the Other’) and even tips her hat to the healthy female singer-songwriter scene with the delightfully bizarre ‘Count Backwards’.
Closing instrumental ‘Credit Theme’ exposes another of Emika’s many talents, as her classical piano training is put to good use with a Satie-esque miniature of deft elegance. As the last note of this stunning debut set fades away, it’s around this time that you start to wonder if she’s just been showing off all along…
Read this review in context over at HYPONIK
December 9, 2011
Review: The Roots – ‘Undun’
If you’re one of those people for whom the words ‘concept album’ initiate a rising panic within, then adding ‘hip-hop’ in front of them will probably induce a full on cardiac arrest. Well, unfortunately for you, that’s exactly what The Roots’ 13th album is: a life-to-death tale of an inner-city struggler named Redford Stevens (a composite of different real-life characters) set to some of the more adventurous music that this adventurous group have concocted over the years. Oh, and the narrative is also in reverse.
OK, scaremongering aside, the reality is better than all that sounds. Undun is a largely concise, well-crafted hip-hop set with a storyline that neither preaches nor moralises: a straight-up account of a well-worn tale.
The group, spearheaded by drummer/producer Ahmir ‘?uestlove’ Thompson and Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter, cemented its position in the rap pantheon with a string of breathtaking albums in the ’90s, before heading down a more experimental route on 2001’s Phrenology and the live-and-loose The Tipping Point (2004). Recent efforts have been disappointing, Game Theory (2006) and Rising Down (2008) yielding only a couple of decent tracks between them, while the less said about 2010 efforts How I Got Over and the John Legend-vocalised covers album Wake Up! the better.
Undun, then, signifies a relative return to form, and continues a surprising run of creativity in light of the group’s day job as house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The opening tone of a flat-lining Redford leaving the world to the sound of gentle keys and a crying baby drifts into ‘Sleep’; a sparse production over which Trotter (as Redford) tiredly laments his life, contemplating “oh, there I go, from a man to a memory / damn, I wonder if my fam will remember me”.
Sometime collaborator Dice Raw — still familiar to many Roots fans as the explosive 15-year-old who destroyed ‘The Lesson Pt. 1’ way back on 1995’s Do You Want More?!!!??! — is one of a number of vocal observers to Redford’s life and times, trading some eulogising verses with Little Brother’s Phonte on ‘One Time’ before the delightfully named Greg Porn drops some irksome party rap in ‘Kool On’.
‘Lighthouse’ is a highlight; Dice Raw’s radio-friendly hook playing out over a shuffled break beat, while ‘I Remember’ touches on the cathartic nostalgia of childhood recollections. By this point, however, it appears the concept has become confused, and that the previous four tracks were essentially dealing with the same aspects of Redford’s life.
As if to compound matters, the final four tracks serve as four different movements of an instrumental composed by songwriter Sufjan Stevens (probably no relation to Redford), perhaps allowing the listener time to consider the protagonist’s life in full. It’s a shame, as they consist largely of pretentious-sounding piano bashing and mournful string sections, where the time could have been given to more of the enjoyable beats and rhymes of the album so far. However, Undun is largely encouraging for those hoping The Roots hadn’t fully fallen off, and even if their best days are largely behind them, this is definitely the group’s best effort since The Tipping Point.
Read this review in context over at THE STOOL PIGEON
December 8, 2011
Review: The Black Keys – ‘El Camino’
The guitar/drums rock-duo concept is not a new one, but its success relies on the ways in which bands overcome the limitations in personnel. The White Stripes did it with a combination of irresistibly catchy garage rock (and not racing to dispel wild assumptions about their relationship — even incest is good publicity). The Ting Tings aimed squarely for the charts with flavour-of-the-month adroitness, while Death From Above 1979’s bizarre dance punk had enough face-meltingly distorted bass noodling for it not to be an issue.
The steadily rising star of The Black Keys is therefore a slight mystery. Neither charisma nor innovation appear to be of concern for guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney, yet there’s something in their no-nonsense blues rock that has caught on in a major way on both sides of the Atlantic, and the arrival of their Danger Mouse-produced seventh album looks set to cement their ‘big rock act’ status. But how did we get here?
It’s firstly important to consider that being a duo doesn’t define the band’s sound as much as liberate it. Carney’s drumming is big and spacious, leaving plenty of room for Auerbach to layer guitar parts and suitably aggrieved vocals in the studio, and both are always careful to retain that live and wired feel. Building a following in the hard-working, constant touring fashion, their heavy, mid-tempo grooves caught the ear of hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, who conceived a collaborative album (2009’s Blakroc) which saw the band provide beats for a ragtag crew of MCs including Mos Def, Jim Jones and members of Wu-Tang Clan. The plot thickens…
2010’s monster set Brothers, built on previous album Attack and Release to fully define the raw, guttural sound that appears to be one of the factors behind the band’s wildfire spread of popularity — though regular appearances on the Fifa 11 ads and HBO’s brilliant Eastbound And Down series doubtless helped grease the wheels a little. But what of its follow-up, El Camino?
The opening euphoric rush of ‘Lonely Boy’ is an example of weirdly no-frills bombast only The Black Keys could accomplish. Its chant-along hook and ballsy riffs provide the perfect soundtrack to one of the strangest viral promo videos for a long time: a one-take clip of actor/security guard Derrick T. Tuggle dancing to the track in a motel lobby, kind of like a cooler version of Thom Yorke in Radiohead’s ‘Lotus Flower’ video.
‘Gold On The Ceiling’s 12/8 shuffle and glam synths is like a long-lost T-Rex and ZZ top collaboration, but much better than that sounds, while ‘Little Black Submarine’ begins with a delicate acoustic blues before unexpectedly dropping into an electrifying guitar break reminiscent of Tom Petty’s ‘Last Dance With Mary Jane’. The irresistibly meaty stomp of ‘Sister’ induces constant replays, its matter-of-fact rattle of drum sticks being dropped back onto snare after the last beat, signifying a satisfactory job done.
It would be misleading to suggest that El Camino is top-heavy in its track listing, but the riffs do start to grate during the later numbers. The duo are adept at utilising every aspect of the quiet/loud dynamic, and some inventive arrangements go so way towards rescuing ‘Hell Of A Season’ and ‘Mind Eraser’, while the touches of keyboards and other instrumentation sparingly added by Danger Mouse throughout come to the fore on ‘Nova Baby’: a curious yet not entirely off-putting indie/blues crossover.
As ever with The Black Keys, there’s nothing especially original in this collection of tracks; rather, the duo look to succeed through the sheer visceral force of their pummelling blues. While it doesn’t quite have the effortless flow of its predecessor, El Camino’s unfussy songwriting and heavy sonic firepower more than justifies The Black Keys’ newfound A-lister status.
Read this review in context over at THE STOOL PIGEON
December 5, 2011
Review: Amy Winehouse – ‘Lioness: Hidden Treasures’
Ah, the posthumous album — always a touchy subject. The raiding of the vaults, the “tributes” and unreleased demos, the collections of post-death advert fodder (Janis Joplin, Nick Drake), the claims that it’s not even the respective artist performing (Michael Jackson) or that the recordings sound worse than fan-made bootlegs (Jerry Garcia).
Unfortunately, while Amy Winehouse’s living image was constructed almost entirely in the tabloids and gossip rags as opposed to the music press — an unfortunate by-product of heavy drug abuse and fiery relationships in the public eye, as well as not getting round to releasing any new music since 2006 — since her passing writers and broadcasters have clamoured to remember the smoke-and-honey voice; the jazz-infused Spector girl group aesthetic; and the tragic waste of talent. Indeed, there’s no denying the girl certainly had a good set of pipes (perhaps a comment too close to the line in view previously mentioned drug issues…).
The hideously titled Lioness: Hidden Treasures suggests gems from the archives of a career with far too little released music for its stature. The reality is something a little more disappointing, yet curious: a slightly restrained document of a career spanning almost a decade. There are throwaway pleasantries such as the lover’s rock reworking of opener ‘Our Day Will Come’ and requisite reading of ‘Girl From Ipanema’, but there are also intriguing glimpses of various directions the Camden singer’s career could have taken. The stone-cold groove laid down by The Roots’ ?uestlove on ‘Half Time’ reveals majesty in Winehouse’s phrasing and suggests suitability for a foray into neo soul, while Nas stops by to pay his respects on ‘Like Smoke’, proving that the Ghostface Killah collaboration ‘You Know I’m No Good’ wasn’t a one-off Winehouse-and-rap fluke.
Early versions of ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’ (listed here as ‘Tears Dry’) and the Mark Ronson collaboration ‘Valerie’ (renamed ‘Valerie [’68 Version]’) provide interesting alternatives to their previously released forms — especially the latter, which sees Winehouse excelling over the raw feel of a gritty demo as opposed to the polished and rapid-paced version that appeared in 2007. Ronson is again at the boards for a cover of The Shirelles ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’, a decent snapshot of both the producer and Winehouse in formative periods — the young singer’s trill up the higher pitches on the line “but will my heart be broken” a glorious piece of performance that unfortunately wasn’t part of her vocal arsenal in future years. The fact that this track had already seen an official release in 2004 (albeit on the soundtrack to Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) is evidence of the real lack of recorded material available to compile this collection.
Producer Salaam Remi constructs the majority of tracks here, often embellishing rough demos and song fragments. In the case of ‘A Song For You’, the powerful highlight that closes the album, Remi takes an intimate recording of Winehouse singing the Leon Russell classic in her loft just a couple of years ago, and builds an atmospheric mood reminiscent of The Dramatics ‘In The Rain’. As the track ends, Winehouse is heard discussing her love for depressive soul legend Donny Hathaway (who also recorded ‘A Song for You’), explaining that “he couldn’t contain himself, he had something in him y’know” before tailing off, significantly. The track is arguably the album’s finest moment, and its position at the end is a just acknowledgment of both Winehouse’s talent and considerable emotional damage.
Read this review in context over at THE STOOL PIGEON
Live: Das Racist @ The Joiners, Southampton. 2/12/2011
It’s difficult to know whether New York hip-hop trio Das Racist are being satirically shrewd, spouting social commentary masquerading as stoner college dorm rap; or if they’re merely peddling stoner college dorm rap. Either way, there’s a level of sardonic sarcasm running through everything they do.
And either way, it doesn’t really matter. As Hari Kondabolu — brother of hype man Dap — explains in a fantastic guest article for Spin, “you can be funny and say what you mean”. Over the course of an hour-long set at The Joiners, the group prove that theirs is a wit wholly indebted to the acerbic comedy of their generation, and it belongs on the stage.
Although the kind of informed sideways-social commentary dealt with by rappers Victor “Kool A.D” Vazquez and Himanshu “Heems” Suri is mostly lost in the unforgiving live environment, Das Racist have the requisite energy and confident showmanship to execute a straight-up rap show regardless. American cultural references make up the vast majority of lyrical content, alongside dealing with the (still) thorny issue of race and identity in the rap game head-on in their own mocking style.
The constant in-jokes serve as added bonuses to anyone who catches them (white DJ/guest rapper Lakutis is constantly referred to as V Nasty in a backhanded swipe at the misguided caucasian MC), and those that don’t are more than happy to give in to the group’s playful and engaging performance style. The southern-fried swagger of ‘Who’s That? Brooown!’ and ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ from new album Relax provide sufficient cause for a rowdy crowd response, while a couple of appearances of Dr Dre’s ‘Xxplosive’ intrumental allows the duo’s lyrical ability to shine through.
“Anyone know this beat?” grins Heems, as it drops the first time. “I made it on my MPC this morning.”
Official debut album Relax seems a disappointing regression from the group’s two preceding mixtapes (Shut up, Dude and Sit Down, Man), as if attempting to allow the world to catch up with the frightening pace of creativity demonstrated on earlier releases. It’s telling, then, that the group decide to fill the majority of their set with older or unreleased tracks, all augmented by Lakutis’ languid, hypnotic dancing and the double-mic hollering of Dap. Heems’ and Kool A.D’s verses show complete reverence to rap’s history, constantly cribbing lines from past masters, while simultaneously showing and proving themselves with dextrous flows and high-calibre word play.
Heems plays heavily on his ‘outsider’ position as an Indian man in a culture in which his race is badly represented. He guides Das Racist not just musically but also in their business affairs, setting up the Greedhead label that released Relax and music of the group’s various collaborators.
Back in The Joiners, and the group are dropping their tongue-in-cheek Internet hit ‘Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell’ over another appearance of the ‘Xxplosive’ beat.
“We are a professional American rap group,” Heems smirks as the track ends. “We’ve got three more numbers left. In the business we call them numbers.” The last of these numbers, the rampantly crazed Hindi samples of new single ‘Michael Jackson’ gets the night’s best reaction, and Heems’ previous comment looks more like a statement of fact than playful humour.
But then, as the hook to ‘Hahahaha jk?’ explains, “we’re not joking/just joking, we are joking/just joking, we’re not joking” — by far the most pertinent depiction of Das Racist yet.
Read this review in context over at THE STOOL PIGEON
