Return of the Reviews: Summer 2015

Ok. So it's been quite a while since I've done anything here. Was in the middle of a move and what not, but I've been listening along. Just going to share some brief opinions on some of the albums that have come out in the mean time. More to follow, since a lot of projects I was interested in came out this summer.


Ghostface Killa: Twelve Reasons To Die II
My interest in Ghostface has been waning a little bit. The skill is still definitely there, and I can appreciate the scope and ambition of a full concept album, but the jazz and soul production is starting to get a little repetitive. Counting Sour Soul with BadBadNotGood, this is the fourth project he has released with very similar production. Hopefully this Action Bronson beef will stir a return to the dirty old school sound, or something else entirely. I would hate for Ghostface to become predictable.

Lil B and Chance the Rapper: Based Freestyle Mixtape
I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. I'll check out pretty much anything Chance is releasing at this point. There are flashes of brilliance and decent flows here and there,but as this is all freestyles, a lot of this is disposable and forgettable. You definitely need to hear the NoName Gypsy feature on the first track though, just because of how hilariously awkward and embarrassing it is.

Frank Zappa: Dance Me This
Zappa's 100th official release is more of classic Zappa. Wildy original, amazing, complex and weird as all hell. This is mostly and instrumental album, though there are some Tuvan throat singers featured here that really give some of these songs some original coloring. A must listen for Zappa fans.









White Reaper: White Reaper  Does It Again
The title says it all. White Reaper brings the noise with another synthesizer infused take on garage rock. If you like power pop that is furious, raw and fast, this is for you. Pretty well crafted songs, memorable hooks, interesting synth and guitar leads and a great lo fi approach.










Bilal: In Another Life
Kendrick collaborator and card carrying Soulquarian Bilal returns with another Neo-Soul gem. I'm really appreciating the direction that this album and others have been taking with their production with incorporating more jazz instrumentation. If you liked the last D'Angelo album, To Pimp a Butterfly or some of the stuff Brainfeeder has been putting out lately, I'd give this a shot.









The Internet: Ego Death
I've found the Internet to be very hit or miss. Syd isn't a great singer, the production isn't really that amazing, and the subject matter has always been pretty meh. Maybe this doesn't mean anything, but their first project post-OFWGKTA break up really invigorated their music. Syd sounds a lot better and the production is getting better, incorporating a lot more live instruments to play deep grooves. The song subjects are still a little shaky, but the progress shown on this album gives me a lot of hope for the next one.

Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell: Sing Into My Mouth
This collaboration album is a testament to the skill of Ben Bridwell and Sam Beam as arrangers. Here they perform covers from so many genres, and twist them into a folk and country framework. Let's just say you've never heard the work of Talking Heads, David Gilmour, or John Cale performed like this. It's a well crafted project with great acoustic guitar work, brilliant arrangements and some intricate harmonies. Reminds me of Working Man's Dead to a degree, and that's definitely a compliment.








William Basinski: The Deluge
After the ordeal of getting this album (the first pressing was recalled due to a manufacturing error, and then during the move it took longer for the record to get to my new apartment), it was all worth it. This piece really builds on Cascade in a very interesting way with the arpeggiated feedback loops of the original piano loop. It is also quite different from the live version given as a download with Cascade, so don't think that if you've heard that, you've heard this piece. There are some orchestral flourishes and other additions in the Denouement section not heard on that version, so this is strongly recommended.







Tame Impala: Currents
I've never really been that into Tame Impala, mainly because of the obvious Beatles homage that borders on thievery. But I'm taking that all back, because the new direction is just so much worse. I'm not opposed to electronics and synths in rock, but they are combined in such an uninteresting and repetitive way. The repeating loop on 'Let It Happen' seemed interminable. I just can't behind it at all.










Thundercat: The Beyond/ Where the Giants Roam
Bass virtuoso Thundercat came out with a soulful mini album with some good songs, and of course great work on the bass. Thundercat has really been on a roll recently with To Pimp a Butterfly, The Epic, and now his own solo project. My only compliment is with the length. At only around 16 minutes, I just end up wanting more Thundercat by the end. Hopefully this is a taste of more to come.










Richard Chartier and William Basinski: The Divertissement
Speaking of people on a roll, William Basinski teams up with frequent collaborator Richard Chartier for his third project this year. This is album perfectly captures the mood of utter isolation. It mostly consists of ambient tones, distant ringing, piano notes, and what I can only describe as "Predator clicks". Put this on at night when you're home alone and prepare to get creeped out. It's like listening to the soundtrack for a desolate city hit by nuclear fallout.









Wilco: Star Wars
Just as I was starting to wonder where Wilco went, they dropped this project out of nowhere. This is probably Wilco at their noisiest. They are really starting to experiment with some abrasive textures, and I can't say enough good things about it. At the beginning of the first track, I had to make sure I downloaded the right album. It sounded some crazy experimental noise rock. They have definitely come a long way from AM.








Titus Andronicus: The Most Lamentable Tragedy 
For a band that is known for their ambitious concepts, Titus Andronicus really pushed themselves for this album. After stripping down their sound for their last effort, Local Business, they decided to follow that up with a punk rock opera spanning an hour and half and 39 tracks. While I can applaud the concept and ambition here, there is a lot of filler here in the form of some meandering interludes, and while I appreciate a good majority of the music and playing here, Patrick Stickles' voice can definitely get grating when listening to it for this long. It'd also be a lot easier to understand the concept of the album if the lyrics were a little more understandable. That's not something I usually complain about, but lyrics for rock operas are kind of one of their most important aspects.



I'll be back soon with more reviews. Now that things are more settled, I hope to be posting more regularly.



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Mini Revews June 2015: Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, Sun Kil Moon & Jamie xx

So, it's taken me a while to get to this point, but here are my opinions on a few albums that have come out recently. I had eagerly anticipated these albums, and the opinions I formed are pretty similar.

Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment- Surf
This album started out pretty great with the song 'Miracle', but my interest soon waned. I wasn't expecting Acid Rap 2 or anything, but as Chance the Rapper is a member of this group, I was expecting maybe a little more contribution from him. I found some of the production here to be a little muddy, with some less than amazing features (with the exception of Busta, Noname Gypsy and Saba). I think this album may have fared better with me with some better production value, some more input from Chance, and maybe some editing, as some tracks just cluttered up the flow of the album, with the instrumentals feeling like little more than interludes.



Sun Kil Moon- Universal Themes
If you follow this blog at all (and I assume you do jk), I had previously listed Benji as one of my favorite records of last year. With that being said, expectations were high. Unfortunately, Mark Kozelek did not really deliver a product as cohesive or relate-able as Benji this time around. This album got bogged down in some minutia, long song times that did not hold interest, and some very personal, but ultimately mundane song topics (having an inconsequential conversation with Jane Fonda in a hotel is not an entirely fitting concept for a song). I do appreciate Kozelek's interest in expanding beyond his acoustic arrangements with some garage rock sounds, but the mixing here was a little sub par, which rendered some of his vocals incomprehensible. I can respect the more experimental nature of this album, but I think it was a bit of misstep.

Jamie xx- In Colour
I was a pretty big fan of Jamie xx's remix album of Gil Scott-Heron tunes, We're New Here, and the xx is a pretty decent band, so I came in pretty interested here. I have to say, I wasn't entirely bowled over. This album is pretty much a compilation of every UK electronic development in the past decade or so, but with a little less urgency or emotion. There's hints of garage, dubstep, and all that, but something just seems cold about it, like its being viewed from a distance. I realize its club music you aren't supposed to dance to, but it could've had a little more energy. Really dug the steel drums on 'Obvs' though. Some fun tracks, but all in all, not that engaging for me personally. Also, too much Young Thug. Any Young Thug is too much Young Thug.

So those were pretty much my opinions on those projects. All a little disappointing to me, but not terrible. What did you think of these albums? Do you have any new projects that you're excited about? As for me, I'm looking forward to a pretty good number of projects, but I'll just have to see how they turn out.



"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

I Saw My Morning Jacket!

Reviews are coming, but I had to share my experience of seeing My Morning Jacket live, because it was pretty awesome. I won't go too much into the opening act, Floating Action, mainly because they didn't particularly interest me (if Mark Kozelek thought the War on Drugs sounded like beer commercial rock, I would've liked to hear his opinion on this band).

All jokes aside, My Morning Jacket started out with a cut off their new album, before going straight into some Z era songs. 'Wordless Chorus' made me tremble, it was so powerful. After another Waterfall cut, they played 'The Way That He Sings' and 'War Begun' and I really liked the jam that they played after it, and it was a nice, mellow kind of mood changer before some more Waterfall songs. The crowd got pumped up again on 'Circuital', and then after some more Waterfall tracks, they closed their normal set with 'Off The Record' and one of my favorites 'Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2' which was amazing. They also did this weird thing with a looper pedal at the end where the pattern sped up instead of down like it does on the album, which was great.

The encore consisted of 'Compound Fracture', 'Cobra' (which I was super excited about, but not so many other people there. Apparently not a lot of them had heard Chocolate and Ice, or anything before It Still Moves for that matter), 'Gideon' and 'Mahgeetah'. The last couple songs almost sounded too loud. Not sure if the mixing was off, or if my ears were just giving out by that point.

The band played amazingly. Carl Broemel blew me away with some of his solos and Tommy and Pat found a rhythmic pocket and held it down. Jim's voice was great (not all live vocals are), which is so telling, as it shows that what he sings is how it goes onto the record, with very little in the way of editing. He also had some soloing opportunities that impressed me (I remembering him doing some fret tapping that was particularly awesome).

All in all, I thought it was a great show. Some of the fans in the area where my girlfriend and I were standing were a little insufferable, but obviously not the fault of the band, and not enough to ruin my experience. The concert also had the added benefit of improving my opinion of The Waterfall. In my review, I was a little ambivalent, and commented on the lack of full blown rockers on the album. In a live setting, that is not the case. Some of those tracks rocked ridiculously hard. I can't remember if it was 'Tropics' or 'Spring', but one of those was so much harder in a live setting. Great concert. Great album to tour on. Looking forward to the new album coming next year.

Check back in later, as I comment on Universal Themes, the new Jamie xx, and Surf in some mini reviews.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."